FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JAC0B1 



A STUDY IN THE ORIGIN OK 
GERMAN REALISM 



BY 



NORMAN WILDE, A. M. 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN THE 

Untversity Faculty of Philosophy 
Columbia College 



NEW YORK 
1894 




FRIEDRICH HE1NR1CH JAGOBI 



A STUDY IN THE ORIGIN OK 
GERMAN REALISM 



BY 



NOKMAN WILDE, A. M. 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

- IN THE 

University Faculty of Philosophy 



Columbia College 



NKW YORK 
1894 



B 



"30S8 



u»iui*l 



rA»«lS22i 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction 5 

Part I. FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 

1. Pietism . . . . . . 9 

2. Rationalism . . . . ... . .16 

3. Sensationalism . . . . . . . 19 

4. Spinozism . . . . . . . . 23 

Part II. DOCTRINE 

1. Sources . . . . . . . 37 

2. Relation of Epistemology and Ontology . . -38 

3. Ontology 43 

4. Epistemology . . . . . . . -53 

5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . 73 

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FRIEDRICH HEINRIGH JAGOBI 



A. STUDY IN THE ORIGIN OR GKRMAN 

REALISM 



INTRODUCTION 

FOR the general history of culture, the appearance of a 
realistic philosophy in Germany during the last quarter of 
the 1 8th century is a fact hardly less significant than the 
contemporaneous rise of the critical spirit. For the general 
history of culture, not for the history of the pure specu- 
lative development. In intellectual power, Friedrich Hein- 
rich Jacobi can bear no comparison with Immanuel Kant. 
The genius of the two men was of an essentially different 
type. To one fresh from the study of the weighty sen- 
tences of the Kritik der reinen Verntinft, the luxuriant rhet- 
oric and tiresome repetitions of A 1/ will's Briefsammlitng 
will appear mere substitutes for lack of real content. Pre- 
cision, system, is not to be sought in Jacobi's writings. He 
seizes his point with an intuition almost feminine, and en- 
forces it with the enthusiasm of a preacher nature. Philos- 
ophy aits einem Stuck is not his ideal. His only method is 
to present a series of unconnected ideas in the form most 
favorable for their reception. In his earliest work, Allwill, 
we have the idea of the individual as his own ethical law. 
Yet it is not a treatise on morals, but a romance which 
leaves us with a problem rather than a solution. In his 

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6 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

David Hume, we have the idea of Realism as the basis of a 
theory of knowledge, yet it is neither completed nor clearly 
analyzed, only presented. In Von den gottlichen Dingen we 
have his philosophy of religion and revelation — but it is 
rather an outburst of enthusiasm than a reasoned treatise. 
In short, all his writings are but the expression of his own 
life — the concrete presentation of philosophy as taken up 
into his own personality. 

To criticise his work as a system therefore, and assign it a 
place in the history of philosophy, would be to judge it by 
an external standard, and wholly misrepresent its meaning. 
But to deny his power as a logical thinker, is by no means 
to deny the importance of his position in the general history 
of culture. One might almost say that a man like Jacobi is 
more the object of philosophy than its thinker. His task is 
the analysis and rendering evident of those inner currents of 
life which it is the task of the systematic thinker to com- 
bine. Hence philosophy can nowhere find a more fruitful 
field of study than the life of a man who has taken up into 
himself the ground tendencies of his age, and presents them 
as moulded into the concrete unity of his personality. The 
very lack of logical consistency in the result, while the 
ground for exclusion from the succession of philosophical 
thinkers, is of value as material, since it serves to call atten- 
tion from the form, and concentrate it on the idea which is 
thus imperfectly striving for expression. Such a man's life 
is like a magnet drawing from the most varied matters that 
which is related to itself. And since, in its last analysis, it 
is man's relation to the universe which is the problem of 
philosophy, it is this principle of individual appropriation 
which it is its task to study. Whether the form of the prin- 
ciples assimilated be correct or not, the mere fact that they 
are so combined calls for investigation and guarantees the 
presence of a content of practical truth. Moreover, while 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J AC OBI y 

it is possible to consider every thinker under this aspect and 
criticise him in his relation to the environment, it is more 
profitable to consider in this way those characters which are 
peculiarly the products of their time, those natures which 
give back more directly the reflection of reality, instead of 
analyzing that reality and presenting it to us in reasoned 
form. It is the poet and prophet natures we would thus 
study, the power of whose personality lies in the fact that 
they receive their inspiration from the unconscious forces of 
their age. Such a man was Jacobi, and it is as a result, and 
not as a cause, that we have to study him. 

Yet though we are to consider him rather in this passive 
aspect — as the recipient of earlier thought, and not as its 
organizer and developer — we have not to do with a mere 
collection of ideas fortuitously combined in one individual. 
He is not merely the meeting point of the various lines of 
thought, but combines them on one principle and directs 
them to one end. Standing on the dividing line between 
the first and second periods of modern philosophy, he holds 
up the results of the past in one hand, and the problems of 
the future in the other, calling on the modern thinkers to 
unite the two. For his part, he gives up the task. For 
him, Spinoza had said the last word of speculative philos- 
ophy, and every logical system must reduce to his. But, on 
the other hand, he holds fast to the ideas which to him seem 
alone to give value to life and speculation. God, freedom 
and immortality, are facts, and any system which denies 
their reality is self-destructive, and fails to meet the given 
problems. This is the test which he applies to the new 
systems that followed rapidly on the critical philosophy. 
Do they meet the demands of the human spirit? If not, 
they are worthless for Jacobi, however logical they may be. 
And his criticism is keen. His lack of system in his own 
thought does not arise from a weakness, but is the result of 



8 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI 

conviction. " Every method of demonstration leads to 
Atheism," is his principle, and, urged by this idea, he is the 
straightener of his opponents' systems. He was no logical 
weakling who discerned the inconsistency in Kant's position, 
and prophesied its idealistic development before Fichte be- 
gan to write. Nor does he fail to recognize the power and 
consistency of the Subjective Idealism. If we are to have a 
real philosophy, it must be along the lines which Fichte has 
laid down. 1 Reason will never be satisfied until it has ex- 
plained all things from its own principle. Against such a 
system it is neither in Jacobi's purpose nor power to strive. 
If it can satisfy any one, he is free to adopt it. Spinozism 
and Subjective Idealism, which are but the one cube stand- 
ing on different faces, are true models of what a scientific 
philosophy must be. It is the aim of Jacobi to make this 
issue, with all it involves, clearly seen. 

But if one is not satisfied with this subjective system of 
concepts, and demands something more than clearness and 
logical necessity, then he must leave philosophy and take 
refuge in Glanben, which alone gives access to the real. If 
the truth is not an abstraction from the true, it is no more 
than a play with terms. The ultimate standard of truth and 
falsehood lies outside the concept in the real, which is for- 
ever beyond the reach of discursive thought. This is the 
idea for which Jacobi stands, and which he upholds against 
every opponent during that fertile quarter of a century fol- 
lowing the Kritik. As opposed to philosophy it assumes 
the name of Faith. As an attempt to reach the real which 
is the ground of truth, it is known as Realism. Our task 
will be first the consideration of the causes of such a ten- 
dency, and then the exposition of its meaning. 

1 Jacobi's Werke, III., 19. The edition quoted is that prepared by himself in 
six volumes. (Leipzig, 1812-1825.) While the fourth volume was in press, 
Jacobi died, and the remaining volumes were issued under the supervision of his 
friends Roth and Koppen. 



PART I 

FORMATIVE INFLUENCES 

i. Pietism 

From the latter quarter of the 17th century there had 
been gradually growing a new power in the religious life of 
Germany. Not that it was a wholly new idea which thus 
rose into prominence, but that this idea received new em- 
phasis, and was realized in the practical life of the individual 
and the government of the church, in a way never before 
known. To a greater or less extent, the mystical side of 
religious life has always exercised peculiar attractions for 
certain natures, but it was first in Pietism that it was 
objectified and made the rule of church life and doctrine. 

To trace the origin of this mode of thought, would carry 
us back through the whole history of philosophy and lead 
us to the earliest attempts at defining the relation of man to 
God, for this element has always been present as the 
peculiarly religious side of philosophy and in unconcealed 
opposition to its intellectual side. Not to speak of the 
Oriental systems, we find this practical reaction of the feel- 
ings against the intellect whenever the latter has exceeded 
its authority, or attained a preponderating influence in life. 
Not that the reaction always takes the form of what is 
properly known as Mysticism, for the form which it assumes 
is dependent on the condition of the social and political life 
in which it is manifested. The reaction from the early 

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I o FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COBI 

Greek rationalism, represented by the Sophists, found its 
field in practical political action, and had no tendency to 
turn inward on itself in mystic contemplation. Similar in 
its character was the post- Aristotelian practical philosophy. 
Although the Macedonian and Roman conquests had de- 
prived Greece of any free political life in which the genius 
of its thinkers could find expression, still the healthy, 
objective character of the Greek nature refused to be forced 
inward, and found vent for its thought in the ethical culture 
of the individual. 

It was otherwise at Alexandria. There the true mysticism 
came to its free completion, and showed the real nature of 
its opposition to reflective thought. It is essentially the 
revolt against a mediated knowledge, and an attempt to 
reach the ultimate reality by immediate contact with it. 
Skeptical as regards the power of the reason to know the 
Absolute, it takes refuge from a complete skepticism in the 
faith in its power to be the Absolute — in the attempt to pass 
beyond all knowledge about the truth, and come into im- 
mediate contact with the true. 

We see in this phase of thought that sharp dualism which 
is the foundation of all Mysticism — a dualism which, how- 
ever sharply defined, must be overcome in order to satisfy 
the religious instincts of man. Hence the more earnestly 
the opposition is maintained, the bolder must be the theory 
which can overcome it, and the more mystical its expression. 
Mysticism is the despair of knowledge, and as Zeller shows, 1 
that of the Alexandrian schools was largely the result of the 
skepticism of yEnesidemus and his followers. Natural knowl- 
edge was discredited, and a higher power of direct intuition 
was claimed. Even this was not enough. The soul must 
rise above this direct intuition and lose itself in its union 
with God. The attraction there is in this idea of a knowl- 

1 Grundriss der Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, S. 265. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I l x 

edge above knowledge — of a communion with God which is 
free from the limits of the reflective understanding — is evi- 
dent from the frequency with which it reappears in later 
thought. Christianity was a direct stimulus to this mood, 
which was an attempt to bring to expression the inner 
meaning of this new religion. Individuality and spirituality 
were the characteristics of Christianity, however far from 
this ideal the doctrinal and institutional development was 
carried. The soul is regarded as standing immediately in 
relation to its Maker, and the image is conceived almost 
spatially, as if it were but necessary to turn the inner eye 
upon its object in order to come directly into relation with 
God. The earlier dualism of nature is transformed into one 
of will, and its resolution is but an act of will by which the 
soul is brought into harmony with God. 

This current of thought is no unimportant one during the 
Middle Ages, though it was rather a religious mood than a 
definite doctrine. As Harnack says, 1 it was the true religion 
of the church during that whole period, and the material 
from which doctrinal Christianity was shaped. According 
to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the true knowledge of 
God as he is, leads to the blending of the soul with its 
object. 2 So on the contrary side, Duns Scotus reaches the 
same result by his doctrine of the denial of the individual 
will. It is thus not in the nature of the results to be attained 
in the religious life, but in the means to be employed, that 
the doctrinal differences of the church and the later Mystic- 
ism outside its bounds, arose. And it was on this point 
that Luther broke from the Roman communion through his 
doctrine of justification by faith. Instead of the attempt to 
reach this condition of union with God through the denial 

1 Dogmengeschichte, III., 374. 

2 Ritschl, Rechifertigung und Versohnnng, I., 122. 



1 2 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

of the world, or through mystic contemplation, he empha- 
sized the theory of its attainment through faith in Christ. 
It is not a different end of life which Luther sets before him, 
but the means for its attainment are different from those of 
the earlier church. In his preface to the Deutsche Theologie y 
he expresses his great indebtedness to this work, ranking it 
next to the Bible and Augustine's writings, and the spirit of 
this book is that of Tauler's mysticism. 

This emphasis necessarily placed on the new theory of 
religious life produced that dead dogmatism of the two fol- 
lowing centuries. The real content of religion was lost sight 
of in the attempt to determine the form in which it was to 
be expressed. During the religious wars which divided 
Germany for so many years, the mass of the people lost all 
interest in the real questions at issue, regarding confessions 
as watchwords for party strife. In such a condition of re- 
ligious stagnation, two courses were open to the more earnest 
minds. Speculative thinkers turned from this profitless war 
of words and looked for a more satisfying theory of life in 
the systems of foreign philosophy. French and English 
influences were early taken up and developed. Not without 
the opposition of the church, however, for in 1653 we find 
the University of Marburg commanding its professors 
neither " to approve themselves, nor teach their scholars 
that philosophy bearing the name of Descartes, which de- 
mands a universal doubt." 1 But the spread of the new 
philosophy was swift and sure, not only in theology but also 
in science. A new spirit of inquiry is noticeable in all de- 
partments of thought. The call to Heidelberg which 
Spinoza received in 1673 from the Elector Palatine, is a sig- 
nificant sign of increasing freedom and enlarging interests. 

On the other hand, the more religious spirits betook 
themselves again to mysticism as a refuge from the barren- 

1 Hettner, Litter atttrgeschichte des 18 ten JahrJmndert, III., I, S. 36. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I x 3 

ness of current theology. Weigel, Arndt, Gerhardt and 
Bohme are types of this tendency. It was the spreading of 
this inner piety within the church, that was the task of 
Spener. He recognized the fact that he was introducing no 
new idea, but only bringing again into prominence the true 
conception of Christianity. But his reforms were bitterly 
opposed by the dominant theologians, however eagerly they 
were taken up by the mass of the people, and it was only 
after a hard struggle that his views attained authoritative 
recognition. But in this effort he was aided by the new 
rationalism. However strange such a union may appear in 
the light of their later development, it is quite natural when 
we consider their origin from a common principle. It is the 
same idea of individualism and subjectivity which was at the 
root of Christianity and all its later developments. The 
new Cartesian rationalism was decidedly individualistic, and 
demanded freedom from all prejudice or authority. The 
universal doubt was its foundation. But this universal doubt 
was but to bring out the individual certainty, and change 
the seat of authority from the external to the internal 
standard. This also was the tendency of Pietism. It drew 
attention from the external forms of religion back to the 
internal ground of them. No matter how true may be the 
doctrines which one accepts, it is only as they are sub- 
jectively realized and lived that they become of value for the 
individual. What is not thus involved in consciousness, is 
of no personal value, whether it be true or false. Out of 
one's own experience must one be able to develop the dis- 
tinctively Christian doctrines. Belief can rest on no other 
basis than this voluntary appropriation of truth. So, Spener : 
"Nicht Verstand, sondern Wille, ist die Quelle des Glau- 
bens." 1 But this individuality and subjectivity of faith, is by 
no means intended to prejudice the universality and ob- 

1 Quoted by J. Schmidt, G&schickte des geistigen Lebens, I., 81. 



I4 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

jectivity of its contents. It is only the personal nature of 
the appropriation which it is desired to emphasize, and not 
the nature of the object. The soul, by this act of will, 
comes into immediate contact with reality. If it were not 
so they would have no explanation of the actual effects of 
this faith. Not that Pietism set itself the task of justifying 
its belief through an analysis of the act of faith itself, for it 
was not a reflective system. It was individualistic, but not 
rationally so. The common doctrines of the church were 
accepted in their general import, and it was only in the prac- 
tical application of them that reform was demanded. 

It was not not as unorthodox that Spener and his follow- 
ers were mainly assailed, but as disturbers of the organiza- 
tion of the church, and enthusiasts. What doctrinal attacks 
were made on them were easily refuted. The union with 
rationalism was only on the basis of their common hostility 
to external authority, and as soon as the individual obtained 
his recognition the league was broken. By the aid of Chris- 
tian Thomasius, Pietism obtained a firm footing in Halle, 
and rapidly spread through the church ; but in proportion as 
it gained power and hardened into rigid rules of belief and 
practice, this rationalistic common-sense support fell away 
from it and turned against its former ally. And Pietism 
was not long in reaching this point when it became no 
longer the representative of individual freedom, but the dog- 
matic assertor of a special doctrine. Even in Spener's life- 
time, the movement passed beyond his control, and instead 
of being the spontaneous action flowing from inner convic- 
tion, the Busskampf, or conversion, which was the distinctive 
mark of the new sect, had become a set formula to which 
every man's inner experience must conform. In this idea 
of conversion, we see the old dualism coming again to 
prominence as in earlier mysticism. God and the world, or 
God and the soul, are sharply divided from one another, 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I i 5 

and it needs a supernatural interference to bring them once 
more into union. The evidence of this reunion is the Buss- 
kampf, which represents the struggle through which the soul 
passes under the influence of divine mercy. It is the new 
birth, in which the old man is put off, and the new man is 
born into a miraculous life of peace and righteousness. The 
distinctive character of this process is its non-naturalness. 
It is only by a complete change of nature that salvation is 
attained. There is no community between the old and the 
new, no passage from the natural to the spiritual. This 
process then, which in the awakening from the prevailing 
formalism was probably the common experience of the re- 
formers, was afterwards regarded as necessary for all who 
would be regarded as wholly awakened. And undoubtedly 
this inner expression was a tremendous power in bringing 
men to a realization of the actual meaning of religion. No 
one who had gone through this struggle with himself could 
doubt of the reality of his conversion, however he might 
interpret its meaning. Men were thus brought face to face 
with reality in their own souls, and made to feel a power not 
their own. They were carried out of their common life and 
found a new one in themselves, which had more reality than 
the one without. So the attention was drawn within, and all 
interest centered in watching the development of this new 
growth. It became the custom for pastors to keep a record 
of the spiritual experiences of their flocks, and watch the 
ebb and flow of emotions. Individuals also kept such 
records and compared this growth from week to week. It 
was in such a manner that the way was prepared for that 
later development of sch'one Seelen, which is one of the most 
extraordinary phenomena in the history of culture, and it 
was in such an atmosphere that Jacobi's childhood was 
passed. 

The details of his early life are little known, but he him- 



1 6 FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOBI 

self gives a few hints of the early influences which helped to 
form his character. 1 His birth occurred 1743, during the 
early years of the second Pietistic movement, when Zinzen- 
dorf was organizing the Herrnhiiter and giving new life to 
the whole party. His mother dying soon after his birth, he 
was left to the care of a pious maid-servant, who early in- 
structed him in the observances of her peculiar religious 
life. Under such influences, he soon joined himself to a 
religious society known as die Feinen, a sect of Pietism 
originally from Holland. At that time, however, Pietism 
had hardened into a rigid system which could have little 
attraction for one who was bent on finding intelligent satis- 
faction for his deepest needs. The great facts for which it 
stood had not been without effect on a sensitive nature like 
Jacobi's, but he was also a thinker and could not be satisfied 
without examining the foundation of his faith. It is in the 
process of this examination that he comes in contact with 
the second of the main influences in his life. We have no 
direct account of his first essays in philosophy, but there 
can be no doubt that he early made acquaintance with the 
prevailing schools of his time. 

2. Rationalism 

The term Rationalism may serve to designate the general 
type of philosophy in Germany at the middle of that cen- 
tury, but we must bear in mind that it was not the pure 

1 The chief sources for our knowledge of Jacobi's life are his own statements in 
David Hume ( Werke, II., 178-193), and his correspondence, edited by his friend 
and disciple Roth, in two volumes, Leipzig. 1825. The letters do not begin be- 
fore his Geneva life, nor does he mention his childhood save by giving an anecdote 
from it — IV 2 ., 67. Interesting, though containing little original, is F. Deycks, 
Fr. Hr. Jacobi im Verhaliniss zu seinen Zeitgenossen, Frankfurt, 1848. Also E. 
Zirngiebel, F. H. Jacobi's leben, Dichten und Denken, Wien, 1867. Of minor 
interest may be mentioned, R. Zoppritz, Aus F H. Jacobi's Nachlass, and Brief- 
■wichsel zwischen Gothe und Jacobi, herausg. von Max Jacobi, Leipzig, 1846. 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI j y 

system of earlier times. We are apt to think of the dogma- 
tism of Wolff as the main system in Germany previous to 
the appearance of the Kritik, but such was by no means the 
case. The prevailing mode at that time was that mixture 
of Leibnitzian theology and common-sense psychology, 
which united in the most varied forms of eclecticism. It is 
little wonder that a mind seeking an explanation of the 
mystic view of life should find no satisfaction in such a sys- 
tem as this. Yet there was an element in it which would 
appeal to his needs, and which probably led him to continue 
his studies in Geneva. This was its empiricism. 

Although the popular philosophy was founded on the 
rationalism of Leibnitz and Wolff, its real force as a popular 
system was due to its union with French and English sensa- 
tionalism. It was this element of realism which gave it its 
power with common-sense thinkers. The stiffness of the 
school-philosophy of Wolff could not stand before the 
growing influence of empirical psychology as introduced 
from France and England. In Wolff's own system we find 
this element even in his professedly rational concepts. Ex- 
perience refuses to be banished to a separate department 
reserved for it alone, but invades the territory of its more 
distinguished rival. Of this influence, Wolff does not seem 
aware, but in the further development of his thought, the 
new scientific movement of the 18th century could not fail 
to leave its trace. The apparent occasion was this foreign 
influence, but the real ground for it was already prepared 
on native soil as is shown by the realistic movement in Ger- 
man literature. It is the same spirit we have seen in Pietism. 
The inner life of the people was striving for literary expres- 
sion, and would not be satisfied with that which was foreign 
to this life, whether it was presented as translation from the 
French or as native romance of an earlier age. The im- 
provement in literary form which followed the increased 




r 8 FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOBI 

intellectual activity in Germany, was not enough. The 
attempt of the Aufkldrung to write poetry by rule, was des- 
tined to a speedy failure. The real content was lacking — it 
failed to express the rude beginnings of national life. The 
classic form of French literature, which formed their model, 
was inherent in the French life and best expressed its genius, 
but when transferred to a foreign soil it could only serve to 
cramp and confine all literary effort. The attempt to ration- 
alize literature was followed by a reaction of the natural 
Volksleben, crude at first, but soon reaching its true expres- 
sion in Lessing and Herder. We have no longer an arti- 
ficial construction according to rational rules, but the pre- 
sentation of reality itself in the form most natural to it. 

And this same tendency it is which forms the moving 
power in the Wolffian transformation of rationalism into a 
philosophy of common sense. Men were coming slowly to 
self consciousness, and turning from the abstractions of 
specylation to the realities of the individual life. Confident 
in its reason as the Aufkldrung was, this confidence was 
placed, not in the reason as a special organ of truth, but 
rather in the general power of the whole individual as inde- 
pendent of external authority or belief. It was rather reason 
vs. authority, than reason vs. sense. Almost unconsciously 
the popular philosophy had taken up into itself elements 
from all departments of life, and to this combination had 
given the confidence which had formerly been bestowed by 
philosophy on reason alone. Experience had crept in, but 
its relation to reason had not been clearly defined. Eclecti- 
cism had come into vogue, and each man took what he 
needed, with little care as to how it should be combined with 
his general principle — if he had any. It is probably one of 
these systems which was Jacobi's introduction to philosophy, 
though we have no mention of it. At any rate, busied as 
he was with problems of life and thought, he was useless in 



FRIEDRICH HEINR1 CH J A COB I i g 

his father's business, and was allowed to go to Geneva in 
1760. 

J. Sensationalism 

The system which he learned to know in the writings of 
the French Empiricists, was no such mixed doctrine as he 
had found at home. The simplicity and reality of such a 
method must have appealed strongly to a youth of Jacobi's 
nature. The subject matter was life, not thought. No time 
was spent in elaborating the concept, but the object of the 
search was fact. 

And here we come across an interesting piece of auto- 
biography which shows Jacobi's method of thought at this 
period and later. Before leaving home, he had been most 
diffident in regard to his powers of thought, since his mas- 
ters had always pronounced him slow in comprehending 
philosophic teaching. It had always been necessary for him 
to reduce all propositions to their simplest intuitive forms. 
Whatever he could not thus reduce, was incomprehensible 
to him. It is plain that the prevailing rationalistic or eclectic 
systems could not stand this test, and Jacobi was in despair 
of his powers. 

On coming to Geneva, however, he made the acquaintance 
of Le Sage, to whom he explained his troubles, and with 
whom he began his studies anew. By the works which he 
recommended for his reading, we see that Le Sage must 
have continued his instruction in the same eclectic systems. 
Jacobi himself expressed a wish to read S'Gravesande's 
Introductio ad philosophiam — a work conceived in the spirit 
of the Newtonian physics — so that we may conjecture that 
the basis of study was empirical. Among other works suited 
to counteract the prevailing skeptical tendencies, we find the 
Logic of M. de Crousaz recommended. But these do not 
seem to have satisfied Jacobi, for we find his teacher lament- 
ing over his praises of a work on necessity and liberty — an 




20 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J AC OBI 

anonymous book, which Le Sage thinks must be the Essai 
de Psychologie. This was probably the case, for later in life 
Jacobi professed to know Bonnet's writings almost by heart. 
Rousseau's writings are painted in colors almost as glowing 
as Rousseau's own, says Le Sage again. We see then that 
Jacobi had passed out of his earlier eclecticism, to take up 
elements more congenial to the real spirit of his life. 

For in his feelings he was akin to Rousseau, and the 
scientific method corresponding to such a nature is the one 
of direct observation and intuition. In all his later writings 
we find the traces of Rousseau's influence, though appearing 
in a more moderate and legitimate form. 

The personal characters of the two men were quite differ- 
ent, and Jacobi never felt anything but aversion for the Con- 
fessions, which he rightly saw were the product of disease, 
so that the ethics of Woldemar and Allwill represent exactly 
the relation which Jacobi bore to the morality of the heart. 
These two works are only problems representing the 
struggle between the lawlessness of the heart and the barren- 
ness of the head. Individuality is the key-note of Jacobi's 
position, and his whole philosophy is merely the preaching 
of his own personal views — he could never discover the 
means of introducing law into ethics without destroying all 
spontaneity. The individualism of his age was too strong 
for him. He had broken from the externality of the old 
rationalism by means of his pietistic training, which also 
carried him over to the standpoint of the Gefuhlsphilosophie \ 
but he never was able to pass beyond this position, and all 
his life combated Kant with a theory as abstract in its way 
as the formalism of the categorical imperative. 

This emphasis on the primacy of feeling did not confine 
Jacobi within the narrow limits which are wont to restrict 
the thinkers of the like tendency. He was neither a pure 
mystic nor a reason-hater, however much authority for call- 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J AC OBI 



21 



ing him so his mere words may seem to give. He has no 
such hatred of science as is often ascribed to him — for in- 
stance by Zirngiebel. 1 During his Geneva life, as already 
mentioned, he made himself well acquainted with the French 
scientific spirit, represented by that distinguished group of 
encyclopedists gathered there, but it is not this scientific 
method which he has in mind when he utters his frequent 
tirades against Wissenschaft. It is not of empirical science 
as such that he is speaking when he says " it is the interest 
of science that there be no God." 2 It is in his later writings 
that we find the greater number of these passages, when 
Fichte's use of the term Wissenschaft had roused his op- 
position. With the strictly scientific men of his age, he had 
no quarrel as to method. The French sensualists and 
materialists he heartily opposes, but it is not on grounds of 
method, but of results. He accepts the experiential basis 
of knowledge, and his claim for recognition lies in a closer 
analysis and more complete induction of facts. His dia- 
logue of David Hume is in parts almost as empircal as the 
works of that author. 

It is only in his ethical and religious writings that he ex- 
pressly attacks the empiricists, and even in this it is often 
hard to decide whether he is speaking in his own character 
or only maintaining the dialogue, for his sympathies are 
generally with both parties. He is certainly not at one with 
Rousseau in his hatred of modern civilization and science, as 
a clear passage in Woldemar expressly states. 3 It was not 
his stay in Geneva which determined the opposition between 
Glauben and Wissen for Jacobi, but his earlier religious train- 
ing and his later study of Spinoza. It is speculative, rational 
Wissenschaft which he attacks, and not a careful induction 



1 F. H. yacobi 's Leben, Dichten und Denken, p. 7. 
2 Werke, III., 384, 385. 3 V, 206. 



22 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J AC OBI 

of facts and classification of laws. In several passages in the 
general introduction to his philosopical writings, he is care- 
ful to use limiting clauses in his sweeping denunciation of 
science. Against science " within its own limits" he has 
nothing to say ; it is only when it passes out of the natural 
and dogmatizes in regard to the supernatural, that its validity 
can be questioned. 1 In the preface to the fourth volume of 
his works written just before his death, he describes this 
Wissenschaft in terms which make it very clear what school 
or type of philosophy he is opposing : " Science will love 
and respect only itself, recognize nothing above itself, but be, 
and bring forth, all in all — it will be as God. It lays claim 
to omniscience, asserts its power to destroy all doubt, to 
possess all truth; is proclaimed from professors' chairs as 
the all-sufficient teaching and wisdom, compared with which 
the thinkers of all ages have reasoned falsely and been en- 
snared in error and delusion. This science, the so-called 
real and only one, consists in the self-production of its own 
object. It creates the true and the truth ; is wholly inde- 
pendent and changes all else into nothingness." 2 This 
volume contains his main work on Spinoza, and hence this 
preface is directed against that type of philosophy, and not 
the properly scientific writers of his time. Jacobi is always 
partial to the scientific nations, the English and French. 
Especially early in life, in his romances he quotes largely 
from the Scotch and English moralists, and he was one of 
the first to introduce Adam Smith's economic theories to 
Germany. His Politische Rliapsodie is confessedly only an 
exposition of the principles contained in the Wealth of 
Nations. 

Science then, for Jacobi, means demonstrated knowledge 
of the Absolute. Its representatives are not the French 
Naturalists whom he has met during this Geneva period of 
1 II, 1 1 6. 2 IV., XXIX. Also III., 20. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 2 3 

his life, but Materialists and Idealists so far as they attempt 
a complete system of the universe. Spinoza and Fichte are 
ever in his mind when he inveighs against knowledge. His 
quarrel with sensationalism is not on grounds of method, 
but of result. It is not as false, but as partial, that he is 
forced to reject its conclusions. His own method is identical 
with that of science, and his cry is, " Oh that the torch of 
science might come again into the hands of experience, that 
with it the ancient march toward reason and truth might 
begin anew." 1 

4. Spinozism 

It is shortly after his return to Germany, that Jacobi comes 
in contact with the last influence which had a determining 
effect on his thought. The subject of the Berlin Academy 
for its prize essay in 1763, had been on the Evidence in 
Metaphysical Knowledge, and Jacobi had looked forward to 
the crowned essay with great interest, as the subject had 
much engaged his attention at the time. Mendelssohn's 
essay, however, was a disappointment to him — he had ex- 
pected some new light on the subject, but instead found 
only a graceful recapitulation of the old arguments for the 
existence of God. These had already been rejected by 
Jacobi as worthless, and his thorough study of the empiricists 
had only strengthened his partiality for a more realistic 
method than that of the common-sense thinkers. But the 
confidence with which Mendelssohn brought forward the 
old arguments roused him to a new study of them, in order 
to discover what was the reason of their continued power 
with so many minds. Descartes' position he already knew, 
and having read Leibnitz' remark that Spinozism was only 
a completed Cartesianism, 2 he began the study of the Ethics. 
This, as he says, was the decisive period for' his later de- 

1 II., 267. 2 Theodicee, § 393. 



24 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

velopment. He found here the rationalistic position carried 
out to its extreme conclusion, and its methods and results 
more clearly brought to view than in any more moderate 
system. As he says, he here learned for the existence of 
what kind of a God the ontological argument could be a 
proof. The distinction of the principium compositionis 
and the principium generationis was the result of his study 
at this time, and is the key to his position in regard to the 
theory of knowledge and metaphysics, as it is to the under- 
standing of every dualistic system. 

This distinction of the Realgrund from the Erke?tntniss- 
grund, while not new in philosophy, is here for the first time 
made the basis for a distinct system of thought. It is 
Jacobi's insistence on the complete disparateness of the two 
principles which separates him from all monistic thinkers. 
The distinction is first made by Aristotle, in his recognition 
of the fourfold nature of causality; but in modern philosophy, 
with its new principle of dualism, it must assume a different 
position from that which it occupied in the monism of the 
older Greek systems. It is impossible to assume the iden- 
tity or correlation of these four principles when the universe 
has been split into two distinct worlds, as was done in the 
philosophy of the 17th century. It may be that there is an 
ultimate harmony or identity when viewed sub specie aeterni- 
tatis, but modern philosophy starts from the express assump- 
tion that we cannot thus view things. The identity must 
first be proved. In regard to this question we are consider- 
ing, the relation of the cause and reason, the necessity of this 
proof had not yet been clearly seen. The unity of the world 
in God, as the one true Substance, had seemed to account 
for the identity or correspondence of the subjective principle 
of knowledge with the objective principle of becoming. The 
monism of Aristotle still held sway even after its principle 
had been deserted. In Descartes we do not find any treat- 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOB I 



25 



ment of this special subject. The discrepancy between the 
two series of causes is not noticed. The beginning of a more 
decided distinction is found in his controversy with Gassendi 
on the nature of the relation of cause and effect. Descartes 
insists on the coincidence of the two — all the effect being 
contained in the cause, and hence being unable to persist 
after the latter has ceased to be. This is the scholastic prin- 
ciple of causa cessans, cessat effectus, and shows Descartes' 
purely rational and ontological position. Gassendi insists on 
the element of time as essential, thus showing the influence 
of the scientific view which was later to claim the causa as 
wholly its own. Malebranche continues the rationalistic 
treatment of causality, defining a true cause as one " entre 
laquelle et son effet l'esprit appercoit une liaison necessaire." 1 
It is thus evident that we must see all things in God, who 
can alone be the true cause. The existence of things and 
the reason of things must be identical. 

Spinoza's system is yet more explicit than those of his 
predecessors. The order of being and the order of thought 
are coincident in their whole extent, since they are only two 
aspects of the same substance. He expressly recognizes the 
identity in his use of the expression causa sive ratio. So 
too, in speaking of the manner in which God is the cause of 
all things, Spinoza explains it as being the same process by 
which he is the causa sui 2 i. e. as being the ultimate reason 
or ground of his existence. The causality of God is his 
essence. The cause with which Spinoza is concerned, is 
thus not the law by which finite changes come about, but the 
eternal reason of the world. The law of the finite modes be- 
longs to empirical science and cannot be deduced from the 
absolute attributes of God. Only as we start from the ulti- 



1 Recherche de la Verite, Lib. II., c. 3. 
2 Ethices /., prop. XXV., Sch. 



26 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI 

mate Essence can we explain the world in its totality, and it 
is only in its totality that we can explain it. The particular 
is not to be understood from the universal, but follows its 
own unchanging law from all eternity. And so Spinoza 
treats the world in his Ethics. He begins from his doctrine 
of Substance and carries it so far as is possible, and then we 
find a pure empiricism in the remaining discussion of the 
particulars of psychology. It is always, however, the reason 
of things which he seeks, an explanation through their 
essence and not through their antecedents. 

Leibnitz also seeks 7neanings rather than causes. There is 
no such skeptical dualism as we find in Jacobi, and hence 
there is no such separation of the final and efficient causes 
as led to Jacobi's position. The principle of sufficient rea- 
son combines both these notions, whose distinction arises 
from the nature of the matter on which they are employed. 
Leibnitz thus states the law in the Monadologie : 1 " Our 
reasoning is founded on two great principles, (i) that of 
contradiction, by virtue of which we consider false that which 
is self-contradictory, and true that which is opposed or con- 
tradictory to the false, and (2) that of sufficient reason, by 
virtue of which we decide that no fact can be true or existent, 
and no proposition valid, unless there be a sufficient reason 
why it is thus and not otherwise, although these reasons are 
for the most part unknown to us." The existence of fact, 
and the validity of truth, are thus to be referred to one prin- 
ciple of explanation. We are forced by this necessity of 
seeking a reason for everything to the assumption of a 
supreme Raison Suffisante which may form the ground for 
all else. This supreme Monad seems to be of the nature of 
an organizing idea — at once" force and end. The unity of 
substance, which had been such an important principle in 
Spinoza's thought, is retained by Leibnitz in his plurality of 

1 Monadologie, §§ 31, 32. 



FRIED RICH HE IN RICH JACOB I 2 J 

monads, each of which is simple and exclusive. We are 
still dealing with a monist in regard to knowledge, and Jacobi 
sees that his principle is not different from that of Spinoza. 
There is still no place for the individual and his freedom in 
the presence of this all-destroying necessity. If all things 
are to be explained from their essence, we have a static uni- 
verse in which there can be no change nor dissolution. 
And it is change and self-initiation, which Jacobi would 
preserve. 

In the writings of Wolff and his successors, we find that 
speculative power, which had been able in the earlier 
rational systems to produce unity, declining. Philosophy 
was divided into a rational and empirical part, between 
which the chasm grew ever wider. Reasons grow more 
rational and logical ; causes, more empirical and real. Ne- 
cessity is confined to the operations of the subjective intel- 
lect, while the world of science grows more and more 
contingent and irrational. It is in Crusius that we find the 
clearest expression of this distinction between the principium 
generationis and the principium compositionis. The change 
is due to the increasing influence of the scientific spirit, and 
we must now consider the idea of causality as developed by 
the ernpiricists. 

The process is that of the derationalization of experience. 
Starting in Locke with the assertion that the idea of power 
was to be obtained from observation of the changes in nature 
and spirit, under the clearer analysis of Hume the theory is 
made to allow only a customary succession. Accepting 
Locke's assertion that in every change observed " the mind 
must collect a power somewhere able to make that change," 1 
Berkeley finds that power only in spirit. Hume, however, 
denies the certain knowledge of any source of power. In 
what we please to call our own experience of power, we have 
* Essay, Bk. II., ch. XXL, 4. 



2 8 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

no knowledge of the will as efficient, but know only the suc- 
cession of a feeling of effort and a change produced. Of a 
connection between the two we have no knowledge. 

Reid's answer to this result of the English empiricism was 
an appeal to a truer account of experience and a more mod- 
erate expectation of results. He shows that the analysis of 
Hume has not reached the ultimate elements. He has taken 
but a part of experience, leaving unexplained some of the 
essential and universal facts. In our search, moreover, Reid 
would have us " seek a modest certainty." 

The task of philosophy is not to show a reason for all 
things, but to bring to light the ultimate elements of thought 
and so exhibit their form and meaning that they may be 
seen to form a harmonious whole — that is, a man must "un- 
ravel his notions and opinions till he find out the simple 
and original principles of his constitution, of which no ac- 
count can be given but the will of our Maker. This may 
truly be called an analysis of the human faculties ; and, till 
this is performed, it is vain we expect any just system of the 
mind — that is, an enumeration of the original powers and 
laws of our constitution and an explication from them of the 
various phenomena of human nature." 1 

The result of this method of philosophizing was to exhibit 
in every experience the presence of certain elements which 
Hume had ignored. These elements Reid calls principles 
of common-sense, and refuses to discuss them further. 
They are ultimate beliefs, and incapable of further justifica- 
tion or explanation. To deny them is to put ourselves 
beyond the bounds of common-sense and practical life. 
This is stated by Reid with rather superfluous dogmatism 
and bluntness, but yet his thought is not worthy of the dis- 
regard with which it is treated by German writers generally, 
for his analysis is keen. The real power of his work does 

1 Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, Introd., sec. II. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 2 g 

not lie in its professed results, but in the analysis by which 
they are reached. It is his merit to have laid bare the real 
flaw in Locke's psychology, and to have substituted a truer 
notion of experience. It is the " unrelated impression" 
which is the moving power in Hume's skeptical work, and it 
is Reid's service to have corrected this false psychology by 
starting from the concrete judgment as the primary fact in 
knowledge. Over and over again he asserts that our knowl- 
edge does not begin with "mere ideas in our own mind," 
but with "things," by which he means a belief or judgment 
of existence. This result is rather a gain to psychology 
than to metaphysics, but yet it is an important element in 
showing us the real force of Hume's contention. How Reid 
effects a union between the matter and form of his judg- 
ments, is not explained by him, nor is the question raised. 
We find the whole series of ultimate principles assigned to 
the subject as to their origin, yet applied to the object for 
their content. Especially do we see this sharp dualism in 
his treatment of causality. He assigns a double origin to 
the law. As an ontological principle, he derives it from ex- 
perience ; as a necessary element in our knowledge, it is 
furnished by the mind. " I see not how mankind could ever 
have acquired the conception of a cause, or of any relation, 
beyond a mere conjunction in time and place between it and 
its effect, if they were not conscious of active exertions in 
themselves by which effects are produced." 1 "The concep- 
tion of an efficient cause may very probably be derived 
from the experience we have had in very early life of our 
own power to produce certain effects. But the belief that 
no event can happen without an efficient cause, cannot be 
derived from experience." 2 He finds in experience some- 
thing which cannot be explained from experience, and hence 
seeks it in the subject of experience. But how it is possible 
1 Hamilton's Reid, I., 81. 2 Ibid., II., 524. 



30 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

to unite these two elements, Reid cannot say. He falls 
back on a dogmatic assertion of the necessity of the belief, 
enforced by a consideration of the consequences of its re- 
jection. The analysis of Hume is by no means refuted. 

The opposition which we find thus existing between the 
empirical and the rational principle of causa, is determined 
by the aims of the two schools in which the opposition was 
developed. It is not the same problem which the two prin- 
ciples are designed to solve. The metaphysicians are not 
concerned with the laws according to which each individual 
is determined, but with the world in its totality. They do 
not seek to describe, but to interpret. For the scientist, the 
world is necessarily infinite, and its particulars non-rational, 
in so far as there is always a given element in his knowledge. 
At no time is the world complete for him. The philosopher, 
on the contrary, must consider the world as a unity, in so 
far as its process can be expressed in a formula. It is thus 
ultimately rational. The result reached by philosophy will 
be a static formula, expressing the constant relations which 
obtain between the changing elements of the world process. 
The meaning of the parts will be interpreted in their relation 
to the whole. Such an exhibition of the constant form of 
the world — the plan on which it is constructed — would be 
expressed in the principium compositionis. The elements of 
time and change, necessary in any determination of the 
individual, do not here come into consideration. The 
Absolute is eternally and unchangeably one. 

The empiricist, on the contrary, is concerned only with 
the finite in its relations with other finites. It is the law of 
change which is his proper subject, and in this, time is an 
essential element. So we have found the English writers 
resolving causality into succession. Their purposes are 
served when the law of the succession is determined — -when 
one phenomenon can be made the sign of that which is to 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 3 x 

follow. There is no attempt at explanation or interpretation ; 
the task is simply to observe. It is this influence which we 
have found breaking up the Leibnitzian law of sufficient 
reason into a causal and a logical element, and it is on this 
division that Jacobi takes his stand. And yet he is not a 
pure empiricist. His problem is to reach metaphysical re- 
sults by empirical methods. He will have a reality which is 
absolute, but it must not be a rational or necessary one. 
There must be absolute individuals, absolute change, abso- 
lute time, absolute finiteness. The phenomenal treatment 
of these subjects, as shown in Hume, he will not accept; nor 
on the other hand, can he disregard them as was done by 
the rationalists. So we find him insisting on the absolute 
value and truth of our experience of power in initiating action. 
If this experience does not deceive us, we have an immediate 
knowledge of the ultimate principle of things, of reality as op- 
posed to thought. In this distinction which he makes, we see 
the dualism which has taken the place of the older monism. 
The rational principle, which had been constitutive of all 
reality, has become for Jacobi only the logical principle of 
Grund und Folge. It is in this sense that he opposes 
Spinoza's method of demonstration as leading to blank 
identity — to a mere universal which excludes all particulars. 
This examination of Spinoza's principle of procedure, we 
have now to consider. 

As we have seen, by natural disposition and early educa- 
tion Jacobi was inclined to the study of being, of reality. 
Pietism had taught him to look at the facts of the soul life as 
the most undoubted realities and more worthy of study than 
any external phenomena. Wolffian metaphysics had led 
him back on Leibnitz, in whom he found an ontology which 
he later made his own. But when he wished to apply the 
rational method of thought to refute Spinoza's pantheism, he 
found it a useless weapon of defense, and was obliged to seek 



3 2 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI 

a new basis of certainty. The text-books on logic had 
always told him, he says, that to understand the principium 
generationis one need only grasp the principium compositions, 
since they were really but one principle. On this theory, 
however, Jacobi finds that there is no explanation of the 
time element in the changing world, but all things are static, 
geometric, as in the system of Spinoza. This failure to take 
into account the presence of succession he thinks is due to a 
confusion of our formation of a concept with the objective 
origin of the thing itself, for no one could be so foolish as to 
utterly deny the presence of change. He describes the in- 
terchange thus : " Three lines which enclose a space are the 
reason, the principium essendi, compositions, of the three 
angles included in a triangle. The triangle does not exist 
before the three angles, but both are present at the same 
moment. And so it is whenever we find a connection of 
reason and consequent, we are aware only of a manifold in 
an idea. But because this takes place successively, and a 
certain time elapses, we confuse this origin (Werden) of the 
idea with the origin of the things themselves, and think that 
we can explain the objective succession of things in the same 
manner in which the subjective succession of the determina- 
tions of our concepts can be explained from their necessary 
connection in one idea." 1 That is, the internal succession of 
ideas is assumed, while the external is denied. In this pro- 
cess we pass over the real thing to be explained, der Grund 
des Geschehens, das Innere der Zeit, das principium genera- 
tionis. Succession itself is, therefore, the incomprehensible ; 
and the principle of sufficient reason, far from explaining the 
same, could only lead us to deny the reality of all succes- 
sion. For if the nature of the principium generatio7iis is not 
other than that of the principium compositions, every effect 
must be considered as objectively co-existent with its cause. 

1 n., 193- 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 3 3 

Hence, in this way we can never reach a concept which 
would explain to us the phenomena of succession, of time, or 
of the many." 1 In this we find the same line of argument 
which Hume employs to show the necessity of priority as 
one of the conditions determining our judgment of cause. 2 
It is the idea of succession which must be preserved. In 
fact, all Jacobi's writings show a close study of Hume and 
admiration for his genius. The reason for it is that the 
Scottish skeptic furnishes the best basis for the faith of the 
German mystic. So Hamann considers it the chief service 
of Hume to have made belief the guide of life. 3 In this case 
Jacobi goes on to consider Hume's analysis of the derivation 
of necessary connection from our experience of our own 
activity. This analysis he willingly accepts, laying emphasis 
on the fact that our notion of power is derived solely from 
the feeling, of our own power in overcoming resistance. 
These two points, that we have a feeling of our own power 
and that we perceive the consequences of its application, 
Jacobi eagerly seizes, ignoring the skeptical consequences 
which Hume draws from them. He thinks that the doubt 
arises only from our ignorance of how the power is exerted, 
and hence is only part of our general ignorance of the nature 
of ultimate facts. He believes that in our inner experiences 
we have a real perception of the causal process or relation, 
and not merely of the two facts between which the connec- 
tion is supposed to exist. That is, he considers Hume to 
mean that we really perceive the power in activity, and not 
merely a particular idea, followed by another idea. For 
Hume, our whole experience is made up of relationless 
atoms, no one of which involves any other. The feeling of 
energy is an idea on the same independent basis as the per- 

1 II., 199. 2 Treatise on Human Nature, III., sec. III. 

3 Werke, I., 405. 




34 FR TED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

ception of the consequences — one is neither more real 
than another, nor do we have a more real knowledge of it. 
But Jacobi understands him as admitting a feeling of a casual 
connection, since in his own mode of thought the two terms of 
cause and effect stand on wholly different bases. Of the 
cause, the will, we have an immediate and real knowledge as 
an active force — as a power persisting through change of 
states. We are as it were inside the idea of cause and 
thereby know the real nature of its action, and that it does 
act. Of the effect we have but a secondary or analogous 
knowledge, since by its nature it is a non-ego, a not-us. We 
know it by negative terms of which the positives are taken 
from our own being. From a position such as this, Hume's 
search for the causal connection would appear useless, since 
it would be seeking to bring into external or objective ex- 
pression that which is by nature purely internal and subject- 
ive. It is assuming that there are three distinct elements, 
existentially distinct, in the causal relation — the cause, the 
effect, and the bond between them. It is the bond which is 
sought and denied by Hume. But Jacobi could reply that 
he recognized no such division of the fact. The working of 
the cause could not be separated from its existence, and the 
immediate and inner knowledge of it could hence only be 
expected to coincide with its working. There could not be 
demanded a knowledge of the action in the effect, or of both 
in the same degree. Looked at externally we find only suc- 
cession, and looking at it internally we are only in a position 
,to see the cause. To know both in their relation we would 
have to be both at once. This defense, while possible for 
Jacobi, was not made by him, but was advanced by a later 
exponent of this will theory of causality against Hume — 
Maine de Biran. Its force lies wholly in the doctrine of real- 
ism which it presupposes, and must stand or fall with. that. 
It is rather a defense than a positive position ; adopted to 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 3 5 

explain away the presumption against its realistic doctrine 
from the alleged absence of any experience of it. After the 
position had been sustained that one could not demand 
such experience as Hume sought, it would then be necessary 
to establish the positive proof on grounds of a general doc- 
trine of realism. Such a doctrine is held by Jacobi and is 
here called upon indirectly to establish his position, though 
he uses only his common cry of Glaube. It is almost Reid's 
call upon common-sense to justify his claims. If you doubt 
that this which you have is a true experience of cause and 
effect, you can as well doubt that you stretch out your foot, 
move your hand, or even that you perceive an external 
world. . "'If you can be disturbed by such a doubt," he con- 
cludes, " I know no remedy for you." 1 This belief in caus- 
ality is thus placed on the same level with these other primi- 
tive beliefs, and shows us the point of view from which 
Jacobi regarded it. It was not his purpose to establish a 
doctrine of the nature of the causative energy, though we 
have called his position the ontological one. His results on 
this point were due rather to his efforts to establish his 
realistic theory of knowledge. They are the application of 
this theory to the point in question. He does not seek to 
establish the position that will is the ultimate reality and the 
type of all energy, since we find it at the root of our own 
conscious life. This would be at variance with his intellec- 
tualism derived from the Leibnitzian doctrine of the forma 
substantialis as the real principle of existence. On the con- 
trary, Jacobi is searching for some basis in experience for 
the notion of causality. It is his fundamental principle that 
all our knowledge is derived from certain ultimate facts of 
experience, of whose truth we cannot doubt, since we have 
no other basis on which to found our doubt. As he puts it, 
" Nach meinem Urtheil ist das grosseste Verdienst des 

X IL, 205. 




36 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JAB OBI 

Forschers, Dasein zu enthiillen. Erklarung ist ihm Mittel, 
Weg zum Ziele, nachster, niemals letzter Zweck." x He is 
interested* only to show that causality is an experimental no- 
tion — one of the simple ideas which are the basis of our 
knowledge. 

But enough has been said to show that there exists an 
irreconcilable antipathy in Jacobi's thought to all demon- 
strative systems. Spinoza gave the final impulse to his 
development by rousing him to a consciousness of this 
antipathy, and to a study of its origin. In all later life, 
Jacobi is occupied mainly in the discovery of the Spinozistic 
tendencies of opposing theories. Even Leibnitz is con- 
demned on this ground. Against such a tendency, Jacobi 
is evet striving, and the means which he employs is his 
doctrine of Glaube. 

1 I.,364- 



PART II 



DOCTRINE 

i. Sources 

For the study of Jacobi's system his dialogue of David 
Hume uber den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus is 
the best of his writings. It is characteristic that the most 
systematic and clear statement of his ideas should be in the 
form of a dialogue, and the next in value should be in 
letters, Briefe uber die Lehre Spinoza 's. Of writing a formal 
treatise, Jacobi was incapable. 

In taking David Hume as representative of Jacobi's best 
thought, reference is made to his metaphysic and episte- 
mology rather than to his personal and religious views. 
For a concrete presentation of his own life and that of his 
friends, his romances of Woldemar and AllwilV s Briefsamm- 
lung should be read. The former especially shows the 
influences which were most powerful in determining the 
direction of his early life. It also gives numerous indica- 
tions of his course of reading in the English moralists, 
among whom the moral sense writers were his favorites. 
His religious views are best presented in Von den Gottlichen 
Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung. His criticism of Kant is 
given in an appendix to the David Hume, Ueber den 
transcendentalen Idealismus, and also in a more elaborate 
form in the third volume of his works under the title, Ueber 
das Unternehmen des Kriticismus, die Vernunft zu Verstande 

(37) 



3 8 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

zu bringen. The former of these is by far the most valuable, 
as its scope is less broad. It contains his criticism of Kant's 
Ding an sich as the cause of phenomena. Besides these 
works, there remains an Einleitung in die sammtliche 
philosophische Schriften, prefixed to the second volume. 
This was his last word, written about 1814, five years before 
his death. It contains some reflections on his former use of 
terms, and a restatement of his old distinction between 
Glauben and Wis sen. 

In considering the contents of these various writings 
above, no notice has been taken of their relation to his later 
controversies, since this part of his life lies beyond the scope 
of this paper. We are concerned with the formation of his 
thought, and its relation to preceding systems, rather than 
with its conflicts with its successors. For completeness, 
however, it might be added that Jacobi's relation to Fichte 
is explained in the third volume of his works in the Briefe 
an Fichte, and also in some private letters contained in the 
second volume of his Brief wechsel. Schelling's position is 
violently attacked in Von den Gottlichen Dingen, but with a 
failure to understand his real meaning. This attack called 
forth a bitter review of the book by Schelling, in his Denk- 
mal der Schrift von den Gottlichen Dinge?i, and roused a 
heated controversy among minor partisans of the two writers. 
Hegel came too late for Jacobi to attempt to refute him. 
He feels himself too old, and can only express his desire to 
"buckle on the harness anew." An elaborate discussion of 
these later phases of Jacobi's life can be found in Zirngiebel. 1 

2. Relation of Epistemology to Ontology 

At the outset of our study of Jacobi's system as a whole, 
we are met by this question of the relation which he bears to 
Kant in regard to the value of the theory of knowledge in 

1 F. H. Jacobi's leben, Dichten u. Denken, passim. 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOB I 39 

philosophy. Is his realism the basis of his theory of being, 
or is it a part of it? Does he first examine the nature of our 
powers of knowing before considering their objects, or does 
he examine the nature of the objects in order to determine 
what is the power of the faculty of knowledge? Of the for- 
mer method he had already had professed examples in 
Locke's Essay and Hume's writings, besides the works of the 
whole empirical school on the continent. Rationalism also 
had included the knowing powers among the objects of its 
examination, and the growing power of empiricism was tend- 
ing more and more to make the question of knowledge more 
prominent. The powers of the soul were being minutely 
analyzed by the new study of psychology. A glance at the 
titles of the philosophical works of the second quarter of the 
1 8th century shows the place taken by the study of the cog- 
nitive faculties. Skepticism, also, was both a result and a 
cause of this increased attention to knowledge. 

But in all these pre-Kantian writers, it is easy to see that 
ontology was the recognized or unrecognized basis of the 
whole system. The analysis of the cognitive powers was 
but part of the general analysis of existence. The Kantian 
method, influenced though it was by former ontology, brings 
us to a new era in philosophizing. Whatever we may think 
of the validity of his method or the consistency with which 
he attempted to carry it out, we must recognize the fact of 
the revolution which Kant accomplished in the mode of ap- 
proaching philosophy. Jacobi's theory, while formed before 
the appearance of the Kritik, was influenced as to its final 
form by this latter work. The Brief e i'tber die Lehre Spinoza's 
appeared in 1785, and the David Hume in 1787. The 
method in this latter work, as might be expected, is similar 
to that of the Scotch thinker. It professes to deal with the 
question of knowledge before settling the nature of being, 
but it is not in the Kantian sense a critical work. It is an 



4 o FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 

examination of the contents of our mind with the view to 
discovering the ultimate principles contained in it, by means 
of which he may advance to a knowledge of existence in 
general. We have already seen an example of this in his 
discussion of causality. It is an inventory of the mind's 
contents which he seeks, not an analysis of the nature of 
knowledge as involved in each cognitive act. So far with 
Hume, but Jacobi does not stop here. Influenced by Kant, 
he gives what is known as his " psychological deduction" of 
the categories. Yet this is far from being a deduction in the 
critical sense — it is still an empirical examination of con- 
sciousness for the discovery of fact. What its value is we 
shall see later. We have here merely to notice that a theory 
of knowledge is prefixed to Jacobi's ontology. Yet the sig- 
nificant fact for his system is that it is really only a formal 
introduction and not a real basis. It seems to be a proof of 
the advancing, yet not fully understood, tendency toward 
the Kantian position. As a matter of fact, the connection 
between the two parts of Jacobi's system is only a mechan- 
ical one. He makes but little use of his theory of knowledge 
when describing his theory of being. In a sense he assumes 
his realistic position, but it is rather the old dogmatic method 
which implied an unconscious realism, than a conscious use 
of a professed theory. He reasons dogmatically — that is, as 
if things must correspond to thought, as if the realistic 
hypothesis were true. 

We must then determine the relation between his theories 
of knowledge and of being otherwise than we might have 
done from a glance at his formal treatment of them. This 
formal treatment is due to the increasing influence of Kant, 
and is not indicative of the true growth of his system in 
Jacobi's mind. Must we then say that the theory of know- 
ledge is determined by the ontology, and that Jacobi is to be 
classed with the earlier dogmatists of the school of Wolff? 



FEIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 4 x 

Such a conclusion is inadmissible. As in his causal doctrine, 
so here, Jacobi attempts to hold a middle course between 
what we may call the logical and nomological views. 1 His 
theory of knowing was certainly the result of his ontology, 
but it was not a branch of it as in the rational systems — it 
was a thing apart, determined by the rest, but not included 
in it. The problem of knowledge had already been brought 
into too great prominence to allow a thinker like Jacobi to 
pass it by, or include it in a general system as a subordinate 
part. It had become a distinct question. Others beside 
Kant had been roused from their dogmatic slumbers, though 
their awakening may have been but partial. Hume's influ- 
ence in Germany was great, and many had grafted his em- 
piricism on their former rationalism, or replaced one by the 
other. Jacobi had been one of these latter. We have seen 
how his Geneva study carried him into the midst of the 
empiricists, and how he had been led to a deeper study of 
the dogmatists in order to discern what was that element of 
truth in their thought which continued to vitalize demonstra- 
tions whose worthlessness he had long felt. This glance at 
his mental history is enough to show that he could not be a 
blind dogmatist, elaborating an ontological system with as 
perfect certainty as if Hume had never lived. He had 
gone through the same schools in which Kant had gained 
his experience, besides possessing a far truer appreciation 
of the history of philosophy. He had also followed with 
delight the pre- critical writings of Kant, the reading of 
whose Einzig mogliche Beweissgrund induced such palpita- 
tion of the heart from excitement, that he was forced to stop 
several times for calmness. Such a man was quite awake to 

1 By the logical theory is here meant that view of the necessary laws which 
makes them the product of abstract thought, what Jacobi means by " the method 
of demonstration." The nomological, on the contrary, seeks a mere succession 
of phenomena, is wholly contingent. 




42 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

the importance of the critical question, and if he did not 
fully appreciate Kant's answer to it, this was not because he 
did not feel the need for an answer. He makes a spring, as 
he calls it, but it is with his eyes open, and because forced 
to it by his religious needs. This gives us the key to his 
position. Both his systematic ontology and epistemology 
are conditioned by his religious ideas. As Kant sets before 
him the ideal of knowledge, whether absolutely or hy- 
pothetically, and seeks the conditions upon which alone this 
ideal is possible ; so Jacobi sets before him his ideals of 
God, Freedom and Immortality, seeking the conditions upon 
which alone we can reach a knowledge of them. In Jacobi's 
case we may take his ideals either absolutely or hypo- 
thetically, but in his personal belief there can be no doubt 
that he takes the absolute view. These ideals for him are 
true, and hence can only be known as such in this way; but 
for others who have not these ideals, there is no force in his 
statement. These are the fixed points of his theory — the 
absolute facts which are to be accepted and not explained. 
He is born with them, so to speak, educated in them from 
childhood. His stay in Geneva cannot shake his faith in 
them, though he is immersed in studies which, according to 
Le Sage, " were fitted to make libertines of any one who 
had not Jacobi's principles." 1 Possessed by such ideas as 
these, he cannot sit down calmly to work out a system 
which may or may not confirm him in his faith. He can- 
not start from anything more certain than these in order to 
demonstrate their existence, for he has nothing of which he 
is more sure. They are bound up in his own existence, and 
no system can thus destroy itself — each organism is bound 
to self-preservation. In thus making the moral ideas the 
ultimate end of philosophy, he recognizes his affinity with 
Kant, with whose destructive work he is in full sympathy. 

1 Briefe, I., 6. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I _ 43 

Belief is the end of philosophy for both — knowledge must 
be cleared away for faith. But with Jacobi, philosophy 
must also begin with faith — in this constructive work he 
parts company with Kant, and in consequence reaches a 
faith which differs widely from that of the practical reason. 
We cannot then say, that Jacobi was a pure dogmatist in 
the old rational style, nor, on the other hand, that he was 
critical. If we enlarge the meaning of ontology so that it 
covers the whole Weltansicht — the whole sphere of what 
man considers of ultimate worth — then we may consider 
Jacobi's theory of knowledge as a necessary part of this 
system. It is assumed to furnished a guarantee for the truth 
of certain ideas. But if we restrict ontology to the mere 
elaboration of a system of concepts- — to the explanation of 
the inner being of things, of which knowledge is but an 
incident — then Jacobi's theory is a thing apart. Inasmuch, 
however, as it is not distinctly critical, it is more fitting to 
consider the theory of knowing after the theory of being. 

3. Ontology 

In considering Jacobi's doctrine on this point, we have to 
do, not with anything distinctly original on his part, but 
rather with his adaptation of a theory or phase of thought 
which forms one of the distinctive features of that age. It 
is rather a phase of thought than a definite theory, as we 
find it in that period, for it takes on many forms. It finds 
its clearest expression in Leibnitz, and the general doctrine 
may best be distinguished as " individualism." This prin- 
ciple, raised to a system by Leibnitz, though seemingly akin 
to the subjectivism of Descartes, contains a fundamentally 
different idea. Descartes, in the spirit of the modern world, 
brings back all certainty, all knowledge, to the conscious 
self. The value of all external to the Ego is placed below 
that of the Ego itself. The certainty of all truths is tested 




44 ' FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 

by this standard of their clearness and distinctness for the 
individual subject. The departure is made from thought, 
and, for Descartes, thought means the thought of an in- 
dividual thinker. But that this subjectivism was not identi- 
cal, or inseparably united with, an individualism, is seen in 
its development into Spinozism, which was the system which 
Leibnitz' doctrine was expressly designed to meet. As he 
says, " Spinoza would be right, were there no Monads." 
But since there are these individual existences, Spinoza is 
wrong. It would seem then that there is an antagonism 
between these two principles if they are thus pronounced by 
Leibnitz incompatible with each other, but it is not neces- 
sarily so. One is a theory of knowing, the other is a doc- 
trine of being. It is only when there is no distinction 
recognized between their two spheres, that the theories tend 
to be exclusive, as in the case of Spinoza. The nature of 
thought is universal, and when made the basis of being 
we get a pantheism, or monism. Kant starts from Leibnitz 
and never frees himself wholly from his influence, but in his 
successors we find the result of his emphasis on the problem 
of knowledge. Subjectivism may be combined with an 
individualistic theory of being, as in the Empiricists, but 
their tendency is rather skeptical than ontological. Leibnitz 
then, in bringing forward his Monads in answer to the mon- 
ism of Spinoza, does not directly attack the theory of 
knowledge on which the latter was founded, but introduces 
a new element which he considers overlooked in the system 
of Spinoza. He does not start from our knowledge of 
things, but from things as known, and thus is not so con- 
cerned about the method or theory of knowledge. He is a 
physicist, and as such, he finds that the notion of force has 
no place in the Cartesian systems. These are concerned 
with that which can be known and demonstrated — the cer- 
tainty of their knowledge is the object of their care. Leib- 



FRIED RICH HE IN RICH J A COB I 4 5 

nitz looks at the objects known. He seeks the real and 
rinds it in the individual. His own existence becomes the 
type of all others, and knowledge assumes a secondary place. 
The Monads are facts, and condition all our knowledge. 

Jacobi thus states the principle: ''The indivisible in any 
being determines its individuality or makes it a real whole, 
and all those beings whose manifold we see inseparably 
united in a unity, and which we can only distinguish accord- 
ing to this unity, are called individuals (we may assume or 
not that the principle of their unity has consciousness)." 1 
Wherever, then, we find a real existence — wherever we rec- 
ognize a true whole — there we must have a unifying prin- 
ciple. Human power can never produce such an object. 
The unity of art or scientific construction lies not in the ob- 
ject, but in the creative mind. " The soul of such a thing is 
the soul of another." When we comprehend five objects in 
one representation so that they form a kind of unity, this 
unity does not lie in the objects — these have no inner ten- 
dency to unite in the number five or any other number. 
Their momentary union is due merely to our own action 
upon them — it is the ideal unity of the idea, not the real 
unity of existence. In order to think this latter we must 
think a whole which is before its parts. This we find in our 
own being. Our body is composed of an endless number of 
parts, which are constantly being renewed so that no one of 
them can be considered a necessary part of our being. Yet 
we feel this manifold as inseparably united by virtue of an 
invisible form which remains permanent amidst the flux of 
matter. This form, which can neither be mathematical nor 
physical, but yet must be real, else the unity of consciousness 
could not be preserved, may be called, with Leibnitz, a meta- 
physical point, forma substantiate, vinculum compositionis, 
or Monad. Of this we can form no idea, though we have 

1 II., 209. 



46 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

the most certain consciousness of it. It is our inmost self, 
the source of all consciousness, and hence behind all attempt 
at representation. Were we to form an idea of it we should 
have to get outside ourself, to distinguish ourself from our- 
selves. But it is always the union of both subject and object. 
No matter how far we may carry our abstractions, the sub- 
ject is as far as ever from becoming its own object. Hence, 
though we can never form any representation of the soul, we 
have its reality asserted in every act of consciousness as the 
organizing power in knowledge and existence. It is a defi- 
nite form of life, which is never the product of things, for 
things are merely forms of life. "Where unity, real individ- 
uality, ceases, there ceases all existence, and when we repre- 
sent as an individual that which is no individual, we are 
introducing our own unity into a mere aggregate." The 
individual then is the only real. Jacobi's starting point is 
thus not knowledge, but life. While he identifies the two in 
many places, we can see from the whole bent of his mind 
that it is only in extent that they are thus identical, and not 
in importance. Consciousness is not made the source of life 
or its essence, but rather its manifestation. As he puts it 
above, " the soul is a certain definite form of life," and not 
vice versa. The life of the soul does not consist in having 
ideas, for it exists before the ideas, and persists through un- 
conscious states. As he asserts against Spinoza, the soul 
must first be something for itself before it can be something 
for any other being — that is, before the idea of a relation can 
arise there must exist both terms of the relation of which it 
is the idea. 

What is meant by the principle of life or consciousness is 
hard to determine. With Leibnitz, Jacobi would seem to 
recognize a consciousness of low degree in all forms of life, 
though in some passages he leaves it open whether it is so 
or not. Yet the following passage distinctly implies the 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 47 

existence of some such power of receiving " impressions," 
whatever he means by these. " Life and consciousness are 
one. The higher degree of consciousness depends on the 
number and nature of the perceptions united in conscious- 
ness. Every perception expresses at the same time some- 
thing external and something internal, both in relation to 
each other. Every perception is consequently in itself 
already a concept. As the action, so the reaction. Is the 
power of receiving impressions so manifold and complete 
that an articulate echo rises in consciousness, there arises 
above the impression, the Word. There appears what we 
call reason, what we call Person." 1 There is here the dis- 
tinction of perception and apperception as taken from Leib- 
nitz, but we cannot draw any definite conclusions as to what 
is the nature of this preconscious consciousness, which is 
thus correlated with all forms of life. At times he seems to 
be speaking of physical life when he contrasts or compares 
it with the soul, and yet he regards the whole physical 
world as merely the phenomenon of which spirit is the real, 
"What is body? What is organic body? All nothing, all 
a shadow without a trace of actual beings were not first form 
given to it through substance, through a world of spirits, 
did we not start from the pure simplicity of life. Therefore, 
every, even the smallest system, demands a spirit which 
unites, moves, and binds together — a Lord and King of 
life." 2 He must be speaking then of a mental substance, 
when he mentions these impressions on it before the dawn 
of conscious life. He is not thinking of the nervous organ- 
ism as needing a certain degree of development and stimu- 
lation before an echo arises in the mind, but of a certain 
grade of soul life itself. Whenever he speaks of life, it must 
be in this sense, as one with consciousness or the rudiments 
of consciousness. With him the soul is the only real, and 
^I., 262. 2 II., 273. 



48 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A GOBI 

all else is but the manifestation of it to ourselves, or to other 
souls. The forms of the physical world are signs of the 
position, relation and nature of non-physical unities. Or- 
ganic unity is the one form of true being, and the highest 
form of this is consciousness. And this is all which can be 
asserted in regard to the nature of the soul — it is the force 
which unifies the data of sense. It is not merely the 
synthetic unity of apperception necessary to knowledge, but 
an active power as the foundation of this. The "I think" 
which accompanies or may be discerned in all conscious- 
ness, does not give Jacobi all he wishes to secure. He is 
not seeking a basis for necessary knowledge, but for ex- 
istence, and hence must have a fact which persists, with or 
without consciousness. He has no fear of the blind, ir- 
rational element in nature, but is willing to adopt it as the 
ultimately real — as the substance below all knowledge. In 
speaking of the nature of sense, he says, " It is the office of 
the senses to receive and transmit impressions. To transmit 
to whom? Where occurs this aggregation of impressions? 
And what were accomplished with this mere aggregation? 
Plurality, relation, are Living ideas which presuppose a 
living being which can actively receive the manifold into its 
own unity." 1 And again, " Such an individual (a self- 
determining one) must be something in and for itself, else it 
would never be anything for another, nor be able to receive 
this or that chance determination. It must, in and for itself, 
exert power, else it were impossible that any result arise 
through it, be continued or even appear in it."" 

In discussing the office of the reason in knowledge, he 
identifies it with perception. " Every percept is at the same 
time a concept." The only power of the soul is thus the 
reception and involuntary classification of sense data. Im- 
mediately on presentation, every element of knowledge is 
1 II., 271. 'II., 244. 



FRIEDRICH HEW RICH JACOB/ 49 

seized by the mind and recognized in its proper relations. 
As Jacobi's companion in the dialogue puts it, it would seem 
that " the reason came from without," that all which makes 
the individuality of a man is due to the action of the object 
on him, while the subject has merely the reception and ar- 
rangement of this material. The variety of the individual 
life is thus merely the mirror of the world, and we have a 
world of mirrors with nothing else to reflect. It is the same 
objection raised to Leibnitz' theory — there is no content of 
life. It would thus be the direct negative of that which the 
doctrine was designed to defend — individuality. It is the 
Absolute Objectivity in place of the Absolute Subjectivity, 
rather than the combination of the two which was desired. 
Jacobi places both on the same level, object and subject, but 
in his truest moments, that is, when he speaks from his re- 
ligious consciousness, it is the object which predominates. 
Ohne Du, kein Ich, but it is the Du which absorbes his atten- 
tion. Perception is to him merely the remains of union — the 
channel through which the object is conveyed to the subject, 
and in which he recognizes " the secret grasp of the Creator." 
Through this alone is the creative act accomplished. "A 
shudder seizes me as often as I think on this. It is as though 
in that moment I received my soul immediately from the 
hand of the Creator." l The principle of individuality with 
which Jacobi started seems irreconcilable with such a con- 
clusion as is here reached. His method of reconciliation is 
given in the same passage from which this last quotation is 
taken. Knowledge is not given through the senses, but pro- 
duced. " We must assert, not only of the knowledge which 
we call a priori, but of all knowledge in general, that it is not 
given through the senses, but can only be produced through 
the living and active power of the soul." 2 That is, in 
Jacobi's eyes, because the facts of knowledge are, as it were, 
1 II., 272. 2 II., 272. 



5 o FRIED RICH IIEINRICH J A COB I 

expressed in subjective material, they are therefore expres- 
sions of a distinct individuality and not merely the mirror of 
objective relations. He goes on to say that by calling the 
senses a " means " of separation and union, the substantiality 
of the terms united are presupposed. Yet he gives us no 
new account of what is comprised in this substantiality. The 
only description is the one already quoted in the opening of 
this account of his doctrine of being, that the only substance 
is the organizing power as known in the self. And this 
power has proved to be only that of registering the reports 
of the senses. The reason is a continued perception of rela- 
tions given in nature — it is the following out of this system 
of the objective world. These relations are expressed in 
terms or categories natural to the subject, but they are at the 
same time those of the object. We have thus a conception 
of the mind as a bundle of general notions filled in by ex- 
perience, as the product of an external stimulus on the sense 
organs. As a distinct individual, the soul has vanished, and 
we have only the mirror of other mirrors. Or if we interpret 
the object as having still a real existence, we have a series of 
centres in which universal notions or laws came to a con- 
sciousness of themselves. The only real things are the per- 
ceptions which unite these centres of consciousness with the 
One Source of all being, which Source would be again only 
the centre of these other centres. We must seek Jacobi's 
meaning, then, by a reference to his fundamental thought. 
His attempt to put his meaning into words is unsuccessful, as 
is natural in one of his temperament. The principle which 
he has put at the head of this discussion and which we have 
been following out, is not natural to him, nor does it contain 
his real starting point. As has been already emphasized, 
life, not knowledge, is his real basis. The intellectualism of 
Leibnitz does not sit well on him. He uses it only to explain 
his thought and not to form it, and hence when he tries to 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 5 1 

state his deepest convictions, it fails him. So here. It is 
really not the intellectual monad which he takes as the funda- 
mental fact in his theory of the soul, but the irrational life of 
feeling. The only similarity between the two conceptions 
is found in the doctrine of unconscious mental modes, which 
seems to coincide with a theory of feeling, blind feeling, as 
the basis of life. But Jacobi's feeling is the non-rational, not 
the unconscious of Leibnitz. 

In describing his doctrine above, Jacobi's own account 
has been followed and must be accepted as his explicit 
theory ; but in order to understand the manner in which it 
presented itself to his own mind we have to recognize a 
wide distinction between his own thought and that of his 
professed master. His own thought was not clear on this 
subject, as is shown in the change in his use of Verstand 
and Vernunft. In later life, the latter, instead of being con- 
sidered the faculty of principles, becomes identified with the 
Gefilhl. This shows his growing recognition of the im- 
portance of feeling in his system. It is no longer a separate 
faculty of the soul, but the true reason itself — the peculiar 
glory of man. Its position then is exactly the reverse of 
that which it holds in the system of Leibnitz. Instead of 
being undeveloped consciousness, feeling becomes the goal 
of all development. The whole rational organism is only 
for the combining of facts given in feeling. There could be 
no sharper contrast than between the petites perceptions of 
Leibnitz, and Jacobi's Gefuhle. 

Psychology is the source of Jacobi's philosophy. The 
facts which he finds there are for him of objective validity. 
The hypotheses which he builds on them are only general 
expressions of these facts. He is not concerned to analyze 
or abstract to any great extent, lest he lose hold of the in- 
dividual and be left with the logical abstractions which he 
hates. 



5 2 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

The primary fact of his own life, as of all his associates in 
that period, was feeling. All science, all art, all religion, 
was of value only as ministering to the individual life of 
emotion. It was not the practical homocentric idea of the 
Aufklarung, which was rather external and hard, but the 
deifying of spontaneity and emotion. The ideal life was the 
ecstatic life, for which all knowledge was but the occasion for 
rapture. This idea dominates Jacobi in his ontology. 
Knowledge must be grasped by the emotional self before its 
function is complete. At the root of this self there seems 
to be a solid something which defies all attempt to bring it 
into knowledge. It is an ultimate feeling — a dead weight, 
of which we are conscious as ever present, but whose mean- 
ing and nature we cannot fathom. About and around this 
solid centre, seems to play the whole fantasy of knowledge, 
lighting up the surrounding sphere, but unable to penetrate 
the depths of this inscrutable reality. Not that this centre 
is supposed dead in the sense that it has no active part in 
mental life, or no connection with consciousness, but that 
the ultimate mental fact, when we try to comprehend it, is 
one of baffled effort — a feeling of pain that closes the door 
to further analysis from the psychological side. So in every 
attempt to analyze that which is for our powers incapable of 
analysis — we end in a feeling of dead strain. This, for 
Jacobi, is the end of all research — das Einfache, das Un- 
auflosliche. Behind this simple feeling, he sees only a 
great darkness, into which one must spring blindly if he 
would go further. Writing to Hamann in 1783, he de- 
scribes it as an immense dark gulf opening before him. 
The purpose of Woldemar was to make this evident. " I 
would follow him deeper into his life, and show in the 
noblest philosophy known to me, the great gulf which I 
myself have found therein." In regard to the possibility of 
piercing this darkness, he writes, " Light is in my heart, 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 5 3 

but as soon as I would bring it into my understanding, it is 
quenched." * 

The system of Leibnitz cannot meet the demands which 
Jacobi would make on it. Nor can any rational system 
comprehend within its limits that life of feeling which was 
brought into prominence by this romantic movement. The 
terms feeling and thought are incommensurable when taken 
in their abstractness. What Jacobi is interested in, is not 
thought as a system of concepts about life, but life itself. It 
is an idle task for him to seek to formulate his beliefs, for it 
cannot be done with the materials which he had at com- 
mand. For that period, the distinction between what is 
thought and what is felt was absolute. Their unity in one 
consciousness was not recognized in its full meaning. It 
was not the problem of knowledge as such, but this or that 
knowledge in particular. It is this which leaves Jacobi's 
ontology in the air, and makes his attempt to formulate one 
an anomaly. To see this more clearly, and also his half 
conscious recognition of the fact, we have to examine his 
theory of knowledge. 

4. Epistemology 

The problem of knowledge takes on some such form as 
this : " How can I, who am a self-centred, independent 
being, the essence of whose nature can at best be but 
vaguely expressed by the term Trieb, reach a knowledge of 
myself, the outer world, and God?" The main point here 
is, that the individual exists apart from all other existences, 
and that his knowledge, or at least his faculties, are equally 
individual. Consciousness is not the presupposition of the 
theory, but is an additional thing called in afterward. It is 
not this consciousness in general which is to be explained, 
but the particular acts of knowledge whereby the individual 

1 1., 366,367. 




5 4 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

subject is informed of something which is not himself. " How- 
do I reach this revelation of existence?" is the question for 
solution. 

The nature of the answer is determined by the form in 
which the problem is stated, and this is taken from the popu- 
lar thought of that period. What Reid calls the " ideal 
theory," was prevalent among the great body of minor 
writers of the century, and also to some extent among more 
notable men, though not in the crude form which Reid at- 
tacks. The subjectivism of Descartes, bringing all know- 
ledge to the test of clearness in consciousness, had given rise 
to the notion that all knowledge was of ideas in the individ- 
ual mind, and hence that all error must lie in the application 
of these ideas beyond the mind. The immediate certainty 
is self- — the external world is known with a secondary, derived 
certainty. Because we can control some of our ideas and 
not others, arises the distinction of self and not-self — the 
former being the sum of the ideas which we can control to 
some extent. The only facts which we possess are data of 
sense. Substantial existence is known only by reasoning. 
If the validity of reasoning is questioned, all goes. So in 
Hume's skepticism. He had but to destroy the necessary 
validity of our notion of causality and the whole fabric of 
knowledge dissolved into the relationless impressions of which 
it had been built. Reid considers the next step would be for 
these ideas to fall foul of each other and leave nothing at all 
»in the world. But the subjective presupposition was too 
firmly rooted in 18th century thought for them to see the 
absurdity of their position. Their ideas were inside them — 
they owned them — though who it was who owned them, and 
how they knew him, were problems hard to answer, even if 
they cared to state them. Yet there must be a cause for 
these ideas — if we don't produce them ourselves, an external 
somewhat must do so. The nature of this x we may not 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI 5 5 

know, but its existence must 'be certain, since we can prove 
it necessary to explain our impressions. So reasoned the 
majority of thinkers during the first half of the 18th century. 
The point which Jacobi makes against them is a purely psy- 
chological one, and one which they cannot resist, though they 
exclaim loudly at his unheard-of use of terms. 

Here is his dialogue with a friend whom Hamilton would 
call a hypothetical realist. 

"I — Answer me now, do you believe that I am sitting 
talking with you here? 

" He — I do not merely believe it ; I know it. 

"I — How do you know it? 

" He — Because I feel it. 

" I — You feel that I am sitting here talking with you ? 
That is wholly inexplicable to me. What? I, as I sit here, 
as I talk, am a mere feeling to you? 

" He — You are not a feeling, but the external cause of my 
feeling. The feeling together with its cause gives me the 
idea which I call you." 

Jacobi then goes on to ask him how he knows that his 
feeling of a cause represents a real, external cause. 

" He — This I know from the evidence of the senses. The 
certainty which I have of it is an immediate certainty, like 
that which I have of my own existence." 1 

This brings out his Kantian position, which Jacobi declares 
is of no avail to a true realist, since it is the question of the 
value of sense evidence which is at stake. That is, Jacobi is 
not satisfied to be an empirical realist in Kant's sense, but 
claims a certainty of transcendent reality. It is his aim to 
expose the necessary ideality of the critical system which 
animates much of his work. But with Kant's analysis of the 
facts of consciousness, he is at one. That is, he emphasizes 
the corresponding reality of subject and object in knowledge. 

m., 141. 



5 6 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

To this position he succeeds in bringing his friend in the 
dialogue, who thus is finally made to express the true state 
of things : " I experience that I exist, and that something 
.external to me exists in the same indivisible moment ; and 
in this moment my soul is affected by objects no more than 
by itself. No idea (Vorstellung), no reasoning, effects 
(vermittelt) this two-fold revelation. Nothing intervenes in 
the soul between the perception of the actual external to it 
and the actual within it. Ideas as yet are not ; they appear 
first later, in reflection, as shadows of things which were 
present. Moreover, we can always trace them back to the 
real from which they were taken and which they presup- 
pose ; and this we must do whenever we would know their 
truth." 1 And again, "in the first and simplest perception 
there must be das Ich and das Du, inner consciousness and 
external object existing together in the soul; both in the 
same moment, without before or after, without any opera- 
tion of the understanding, nay even without in the slightest 
beginning the production of the notion of cause and effect." 
What Jacobi is here attempting is to formulate a doctrine 
which Hamilton would call one of presentative perception or 
Natural Realism, 3 and the object of his attack is, on the one 
hand, Absolute Idealism, and, on the other, Hypothetical 
Realism. The former, as looking forward to the idealistic 
development from Kant ; the latter, as looking backward to 
the popular philosophy of the Aufklarung. The common 
element in both is the supposition of a Ding a?i sick, of 
which our idea is only representative. This, of course, is 
only true of the Kantian beginnings of Idealism, as existing 
at this date. 

We have designated Jacobi's theory by a name taken from 

1 II., 175. 2 II., 176. 

3 Hamilton's Reid, II., 816 (7th ed.). 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOB I 



57 



Hamilton's classification, but it is far from our purpose to 
follow the subtleties of that ingenious writer through all the 
minute subdivisions of possible theories of Realism, and 
determine just which class is made for our author. We will 
accept the general term and consider Jacobi as worthy of it, 
though Hamilton will only cautiously admit him to such an 
honor, by remarking in a foot-note, "This looks very like 
Natural Realism." 1 The general doctrine is stated by him 
thus : " The Presentationists or Intuitionists constitute the 
object, of which we are conscious in perception, into a sole, 
absolute, or total object ; in other words, reduce perception 
to an act of immediate or intuitive cognition : and this . . . 
by viewing the one total object of perceptive consciousness 
as real, as existing." 2 

This in general gives a concise statement of the realistic 
position of Jacobi, but its meaning is not easy to under- 
stand. What does he mean by immediate knowledge? 
Paradoxical as it seems, it is really the attempt to rid 
knowledge of the thought element in it. Modern philosophy 
begins with a breaking up of the unconscious monism of 
earlier times, and the substitution of the Cartesian dualism. 
This subjectivism thus introduced developed steadily until, 
as we have seen, the world was regarded as known only in 
idea. This empirically subjective standpoint reached its end 
in the deadlock between Wolff and Hume, when a new con- 
struction of existence seemed necessary. This was possible 
in two ways : either deny the existence of any reality 
beyond thought, or else deny the legitimacy of interposing 
a tertium quid between the subject and his object. The 
new Dualism chose this latter way. "We do not know 
ideas, but things" is its constant formula. This we see in 
the passage quoted from Jacobi above. The idea ( Vorstel- 
lung) does not appear in the original act of perception, but 

1 Hamilton's Reid, II., 794. * Ibid., II., 816. 



5 8 FRIED RICH HE IN RICH J A COB I 

is the result of later reflection. What we have is an imme- 
diate recognition of both Ego and non-Ego in the same act. 
This rests apparently on a threefold division of the cognitive 
act or state of consciousness into subject, object and cogni- 
tion. The two elements are supposed existing external to 
each other. The consciousness which the one has of the 
other is conceived as a third thing added to the problem, 
and not as an original constitutive part without which 
neither of the two primary factors exists. 1 What the realist 
would do, then, is to minimize the importance of the third 
party in the operation, which he indicates by calling our 
knowledge immediate. The subject and object are now 
conceived as face to face, staring immediately into each 
other's being, and testifying directly to each other's ex- 
istence. Thus this third thing which was made to mediate 
between the original parties — this mischievous idea — is of 
no further use when we would get at ultimate proof. We 
cannot use it as a basis of argument, as a premise from 
which to reach reality behind it, for it is no longer there. 
We have subject and object given with equal certainty. So 
far Jacobi goes with Kant in regard to the empirically 
known fact of knowledge. But now Kant raises the further 
problem, what reality do I ascribe to this subject and object 
thus known? It is true that the crude hypothesis of a 
tertium quid through which we know objects, is a pure fic- 
tion — all knowledge is in its beginning intuitive, presentative, 
anschaulich. But when we have said this, we have said all. 
The object thus given is merely a subjective one — the Ding 
an sick remains behind all this show of phenomena. Jacobi 
must take a further step in his position. 

This object of immediate knowledge is not a new phenom- 
enon — not a state of consciousness but a numerically differ- 
ent existence. How do you know? asks the Kantian. I 

1 in., 225, 143. 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI 5 g 

have an immediate certainty o* it, is Jacobi's ultimate reply. 
This is the only answer possible on his theory. What is, is. 
Brute facts must stop all ingenious theories. Into the nature 
of the brute fact, he does not go. Glaube and Wunder are 
the only terms in which to express the nature of the cer- 
tainty, and the method of the knowledge of ultimate reality. 
" The decided Realist, who unhesitatingly accepts an external 
existence, on the evidence of his senses, considers this cer- 
tainty as an original conviction, and cannot but think, that 
on this fundamental experience, all our speculation touching 
a knowledge of the external world, must rest — such a decided 
Realist, how shall he dominate the means through which he 
obtains his certainty of external objects, as of existences in- 
dependent of his representation of them? He has nothing 
on which his judgment can rest, except the things themselves 
— nothing but the fact that the objects stand there, actually 
before him. In these circumstances, can he express himself 
by a more appropriate word, than revelation (Offen- 
barung) ?". l " The element of all human knowledge and ac- 
tivity is Glaube!' 2 

" How can we strive for certainty unless we are already in 
possession of some certainty? And how can it be known to 
us save through that which we already know with certainty? 
This leads us to the idea of an immediate certainty, which 
needs no proof, but absolutely excludes all proof, being 
itself alone the idea ( Vorstellung) corresponding with the 
represented object, and hence having its reason in itself. 
The conviction from proof is a conviction at second hand ; 
it rests on comparison, and can never be quite sure and 
complete. If then, every holding for true not arising 
from rational grounds, is # Glaube, then the conviction from 
rational grounds is itself derived from Glaube, and receives 
its power from it alone. Through Glaube we know that we 
1 II., 165. 2 IV., 223. 



60 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COB I 

have a body and that other bodies and other thinking beings 
exist external to us. A truly wonderful relation ! For we 
have only a sensation (empfinden) of our body in this or 
that modification ; and yet while we feel our body so affected, 
we are at the same time aware, not only of its modifications, 
but also of that which is wholly different, which is neither 
sensation nor thought, but other real things, and this with as 
much certainty as we have of our own existence, for without 
a Du, is the Ich impossible. " l We see all through these 
quotations, that effort to minimize the thought element which 
is the essence of the realistic construction. The more nearely 
passive the subject is, the more clearly will he receive the 
truth. It is as if Jacobi were regarding a moral question, 
and insisting that the mind be freed from all passions which 
might disturb the purity of its decision. We must be cleared 
of self that we may know the not-self. All intervention of 
thought action serves to distort the pure image of reality 
which it is our highest aim to see. Thus in his psychology, 
Jacobi makes the Verstand wholly subordinate to the two 
perceptive faculties, Vernunft and Sinn. Sometimes he al- 
most seems to discard the middle term altogether, and leave 
nothing but the receptivity of the soul. 

But if this is his tendency, what does he leave as the 
elements of knowledge, or as the primary truths which are 
our ultimates? Obviously only a given element, an un- 
formed feeling or sensation. He is not a crude Realist, try- 
ing to establish the existence of a material world as we know 
it. He does not claim that the individual object exists in the 
same color, shape or size in which it appears to us, but that 
there is a somewhat independent of us which determines an 
object to be this rather than that — a principle or principles 
of individuation. The fact of existence is what he seeks to 
establish. But in his contention he combines two distinct 

^V., 2IO. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I 6 1 

positions, which much detracts from the clearness of his 
argument. One is, that the object is not constituted for us 
by thought; the other, that the existence of the object is not 
proved to us by thought. 

Against the latter position he maintains Kant's argument 
that pure thought as analytic cannot demonstrate existence 
— cannot go beyond its premises, which must be given it in 
intuition. To this end he makes that psychological analysis 
of perception which was quoted above. Its force is to bring 
out the equal originality of the subject and object in knowl- 
edge, by virtue of which fact one element cannot be used as 
the means to prove the existence of the other. The pres- 
ence of thought in this process is thus easily disproved, 
since by thought he means reflective thought, Verstand. 
But now Jacobi turns the same arguments against the other 
position. Not only are subject and object given as correla- 
tives in knowledge, but this distinction is also one of things 
independent of our consciousness. The empirically given is 
also transcendentally given. Thought has no more to do 
with constituting the object of which we are immediately 
conscious than it has in bringing us to this consciousness. 
Space and time are not thought forms and hence object 
forms, but thought forms because object forms. And so it is 
with causality. The psychological deduction which Jacobi 
opposes to the Kantian deduction of the categories is based 
on this idea of deriving these fundamental notions from the 
existence of objects, rather than from the conditions of our 
knowing them. Its starting point is from the notion of two 
things existing in relation to each other. From this follow 
space, reaction, interaction, causality, succession, time. The 
merit claimed for this process is that it gives us notions 
whose universality and necessity is derived from the exist- 
ence and community of single things in general, rather than 
from the fact that they are mere predispositions of the 




62 FRIED RICH HEINRIQH JACOB I 

human mind of which we must be cured in order to know 
things in themselves. 1 The whole question is begged, of 
course, in the primary supposition of the community of in- 
dividual existences, but the idea of the deduction shows very 
clearly Jacobi's psychological standpoint. The problem of 
consciousness belonged to the generation after him — to a 
generation whose thought Jacobi confesses he cannot under- 
stand. 

This deduction, then, is merely explanatory. It is an 
unfolding of the notions contained in a primary assumption. 
This assumption is that of dualism. Granted this primary 
fact, and all else follows. The method by which we reach 
this fact is again the immediate one of intuition. We believe 
that objects exist independent of us, and exercise causality 
between themselves and us. We have no other grounds for 
believing this than the fact that we feel it to be so. We are 
immediately conscious that there is some resistance to our 
own will — that we only come to a consciousness of ourselves 
in this knowledge of a not-ourselves. We cannot do other 
than trust this testimony without lapsing into a pure Ideal- 
ism. If any one chooses to accept this alternative, there is 
no way in which to refute him, for there can be no reason 
for an ultimate — it witnesses to itself. Jacobi thus refuses to 
discuss the idealistic position, or, rather, he is unable to 
grasp the meaning of its contention. To him, thought is 
always the thought of the empirical subject. He is uncon- 
sciously and necessarily dualistic from the beginning. Con- 
sciousness, as such, is never considered. The point is 
always how the subjective thought can reach a certainty 
beyond it — a knowledge of that which is not thought. 

To provide for this need, Jacobi finds the faculty of 
Glaube, Gefuhl, or Vermmft, which he describes as "the 
faculty of the setting before us of the in itself true, good, 

% 21*. 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOB I 63 

and beautiful, with perfect certainty of their objective valid- 
ity." 1 Jacobi's accounts of this faculty, however, are by no 
means exact or fixed. It appears sometimes as a power of 
perception corresponding to the senses proper, but differing 
in the sphere to which it is applied. In this sense, it is a 
faculty of rational intuition, and is expressly connected with 
Kant's denial of such a power. Kant maintained that the 
ideas must be empty because they had no intuition corre- 
sponding to that by which the concepts of the understanding 
received their content, and it is Jacobi's theory that there is 
this intellectual or Vernunft Anschauung. This position is 
one which becomes clearer toward the close of Jacobi's life, 
and assumes its most definite form in the General Introduc- 
tion to his works prefixed to the second volume. But 
though making the most symmetrical system, and perhaps 
the most plausible, this conception of Vernunft as a faculty 
which presents to us immediate perceptions of the intel- 
ligible world, is not the one which we generally find in 
Jacobi's thought. As we have remarked before, the truest 
conception of Jacobi's meaning is generally to be found in 
his less systematic writings. Making allowance for this 
peculiarity, we are brought to the idea of the Vernunft as 
the faculty of ratification, so to speak. That is, it guarantees 
the validity of truths, rather than brings new ones to the 
mind. Jacobi has earlier identified it with the Glaubens- 
kraft, or Vermcgen des Gefuhls, and these names give us the 
correct idea of it. As he puts its, " it is the faculty by which 
the truth in and above the appearance, reveals itself in a 
manner incomprehensible to the senses and understanding." 2 
And again, he speaks of " the intuition of reason, which 
affords us a knowledge of supersensible objects, that is, 
affords us assurance of their reality and truth."* The last 
clause explains the true meaning of Vernunft as the source 

1 n. f n. 2 11., 73. 3 n.,59. 




64 FRIED RICH HEINRICH J AC OB I 

of the certainty of objective truth. In fact it is impossible 
to give any other interpretation of the term rational intuition 
than this latter. It cannot be compared with the intuition 
of sense save by analogy. This may be more clearly shown 
by consideration of the facts which are supposed to be given 
by this faculty. These are primarily, God, Freedom and 
Immortality. Take the first of these ideas. It is impossible 
to hold that the mind reaches a complete and definite pre- 
sentation of this idea similar to that which it has of a sense 
object. In so far as it is individual, or even expressed or 
presented to the mind, it is conceived in terms borrowed 
from sense itself. That is, there is no order of signs 
peculiar to the reason as such. Jacobi himself never speaks 
of these notions in any way which would imply the contrary. 
When he describes God as personal, he recognizes the fact 
that this term is borrowed from experience, and does not or 
may not express what God is in himself. In a letter to 
Lavater he agrees that God cannot be equally personal to 
every one, but yet that he must be represented so in every 
Vorstellung} This idea of personality is thus the product 
of each man's reflection on his own life. Yet as we saw in 
considering Jacobi's discussion of the nature of the soul, the 
Ego is rather an hypothesis than a given fact. It is drawn 
from our observation of external organisms. We see that 
it is the presence of a principle of unity which distinguishes 
a living being from a mere thing, and we transfer this idea 
to our own being. The idea of God therefore is derived 
from the highest notion of our own being, which in turn is 
derived from external observation compared with internal 
experience. Thus the whole series moves by analogy. It 
is true that in another letter to Lavater, Jacobi asserts that 
our own personality is borrowed from that of God, that it is 
but " a broken beam of the transcendental Light of the only 

1 Briefe, I., 447. 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI 65 

Living," 1 but this is in regard to its being, not our knowl- 
edge of it. The real source of this knowledge, even for 
intuitionists, is not a direct presentation by a special faculty, 
but an interpretation of the whole sum of moral phenomena 
by an instinctive and relatively immediate judgment. In a 
sense, every man agrees that God is a name for the 
moralische Weltordnung — where the difference arises", is in 
the interpretation of this fact. The real meaning of the 
statement that we have an intuitive knowledge of God, is 
then, that we instinctly feel the suitability of applying a cer- 
tain conception to a certain order of facts — that is, it ex- 
presses the relation of a fact or idea to a man's moral judg- 
ment. The man feels that such an idea alone agrees with 
that standard of worth which represents his own inmost 
being. It finds him — it forms the final element in that 
inmost circle of ideas which he knows to be himself. It is 
the appropriating power of the mind, drawing to itself those 
elements of thought which are most consonant with its own 
nature. 

So in regard to the other rational ideas. Freedom and 
Immortality are not individual facts to be perceived, but 
theories to be believed. We cannot perceive Freedom, but at 
most might know that an action was free. Immortality is 
not an existence but a predicate of beings. The distinction 
must be observed between the real and the valid. These 
ideas may have validity, but if so, this does not demand that 
the whole content of the truth be a " given " one — an intui- 
tion. Yet this distinction Jacobi nowhere makes, and the 
consequence is his vacillating use of the terms Vernunft- 
anschauung and Gefuhl. He gives the same answer to the 
two distinct questions, ( 1 ) By what means do I reach these 
ideas? (2) How do I know they are true? This answer is, 
as we have seen, through feeling. The object both comes to 

1 Briefe, I., 436 




66 FRIED RICH h EINRICH J A COB I 

us through feeling, and is known as true by feeling, What 
Jacobi means is the latter statement, and it was only the 
exigencies of defense which drove him to claiming the former. 
Such a position would force him to assign our highest and 
most complex ideas to a simple perception as their source. 
At times he does seem to make these ideas ultimate in their 
nature, but again he is too good a psychologist to hazard 
such a statement. The immediate feeling of God, is an im- 
mediate certainty of the validity of that notion, and not a 
description of the process by which the notion arises. We 
do not believe it because of any theory as to this process of 
its growth in consciousness, but because we judge it good in 
itself. It is logical mediation in our belief, and not psycho- 
logical mediation in the object, to which Glanbe is opposed. 

Such an analysis as has been given above of the meaning 
of Jacobi's Vernimftanschauung, may seem at variance with 
the commonly received notion of it, and it may be well to 
consider it more at length. It is not claimed, however, that 
this meaning is the only one which may be found in his 
writings. His terms vary not only with advancing age, but 
also with his moods, and we can do no more than determine 
what meaning it is which is most in accordance with possi- 
bility. 

It is generally understood that Jacobi comes to his theory 
of sense perception by means of his theory of rational intui- 
tion. He is first a mystic and then a philosopher. He first 
knows God in his immediate consciousness, and then justifies 
it by showing that we can know objects in no other way. 
His God-consciousness is thus the presupposition of his 
world-consciousness. In this lies his distinction from the 
sober Realism of Scotland, which rises inductively from the 
realties of sense, to the objects of reason and faith. With 
Jacobi there is no such subordination of faculties, or if there 
be a subordination, it is one in which the positions are re- 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH J A COBI (yj 

versed, and sense gives place to reason. But the position 
advanced in this paper may be considered to favor the denial 
of this distinction between the German and the Scottish 
schools, and to reduce Jacobi to an ordinary psychologist. 
Such is not its meaning. It is a question of the real worth 
of the rational intuition, which is raised in the statement un- 
der consideration. Jacobi's feeling or belief is to be analyzed 
into its only possible meaning when stripped of the flowers 
of his rhetoric, and this we find to be only that which is or- 
dinarily understood by the terms — a faculty of appropria- 
tion or assent, exercised on materials given by another 
faculty. This is the only meaning which it is possible to 
ascribe to any theory of intuitive knowledge of the Absolute, 
and in Jacobi's case, though he claims to possess a faculty 
by which the supersensible is given directly, we can find no 
definite explanation of its action. 

Moreover, it is a product of his later thought, and not the 
original form in which he presented his doctrine. The in- 
fluence which we have found to be fundamental in his early 
life, that of religion, is opposed to the theory of reason or 
faith as the source of direct and independent knowledge of 
God. By this, reference is not made to the opposition 
which the church has always offered to reason as a source 
of truth, for Jacobi was never influenced by church doctrine 
as such. For him, all religions were true so far as mystical, 
and Christianity is included in this conception, though as 
the highest of the class. What is here meant is that mystic- 
ism itself is opposed to the conception of a direct knowledge 
of the Absolute. And this for the reason that it is opposed 
to all knowledge. The highest state of the mystic is that 
ecstasy in which consciousness is lost in the union with God. 
This state is reached, it is said, through the continued con- 
templation of the divine vision — the eye of the soul is turned 
inward till sight is lost in the dazzling splendours of its 




68 FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 

object. There seems here a direct claim to a sight, or 
knowledge, of God and supersensible things, but it is not so. 

The true mystic brings back no accounts of the glories he 
has seen. Those descriptions which he gives relate only to 
the first stages of his approach, and are but accounts of the 
sensations of this life and world — not of the glories of the 
unseen. The true mystic is quiescent — he is content to 
rest in the immediate certainty of his personal experience, 
without entering upon a defense of it before the world. Sen- 
sation, feeling, is the mystic's ideal. In this he is content to 
rest passively. He has no need of words to describe his 
contact with the Absolute, nor are they adequate — no 
thought could express his feeling. 

This is the position from which Jacobi starts — this God 
consciousness. No one can deny that this is his starting 
point. Herein lies his distinction from the Scotch thinkers. 
The problem, however, is as to the results obtained through 
this consciousness. Is it a source of ideas, parallel with the 
senses? In spite of Jacobi's later assertions, we must deny 
it this character, and appeal to his earlier statements as more 
correct expressions of his views. In all his earlier writings 
he had made no such distinction as that which he em- 
phasizes in his final philosophy, and which was given him 
by Kant. In the fifteenth letter of AllwilVs Brief sammlang, 
a passage which Jacobi indicates as the clearest expression 
of his doctrine of absolute objectivity, there is no hint of 
any source of ideas save sense. What we find is a faculty 
of belief, testifying to the existence of a reality which finds 
expression in the appearances of the senses. The ground 
for such a belief is not that we perceive this reality, but that 
our instincts force us to suppose its existence. Though 
we are but dreams to all appearance, yet a being which 
is only dream, is an Unding. There must be meaning 
behind this changing play of sense, and sometime we shall 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I fig 

see it as "Anschauung des Wahren aus einem grosseren 
Zusammenhange neu hervorgehen, und den Grund des 
Missverstandes uns erkennen lassen, der uns so unsaglich 
geneigt machte, in das Buch der Natur einen besseren Sinn 
immer nur hinein radieren zu wollen." 1 Faith is here " the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen." The " given " element on which Jacobi lays such 
stress after he has taken his lesson from Kant, is the belief 
in supersensible reality, not the object of that belief. It is 
trust in that whole tone of mind which has ever been to him 
the one thing precious in life. 

We can see the nature of this belief in another light, if we 
consider the twofold character of Jacobi's early studies. 
Plato and the English empiricists are most often quoted in 
his early writings. The nature of his Ideas he derives from 
the former, the belief by which they are held, from the 
latter. Plato was troubled by no such epistemological 
dualism as was the source of Jacobi's difficulty. His ideas, 
though the ultimate realities, were not inaccessible to human 
knowledge — there was no such gulf fixed between thought 
and being as we find in modern philosophy. Hence this 
supersensible was only the extension of the sensible, not 
different in kind, but in proportion and degree. The 
sensible partook of these realities, instead of hiding them 
from us. This thought Jacobi wished to retain. It is 
Plato's Ideas the reality of which he will establish. But for 
him there is no bridge from thought to reality. The ideas 
are in the individual mind — how shall their independence be 
shown? Here comes in Hume to his aid. The only differ- 
ence between an idea which is thought, and one which is, 
or represents, existence, is a peculiar feeling accompanying 
the latter and rendering it more vivid. This feeling is 
belief, and is our only guarantee of existence. Here we 

1 1. i35- 



JO FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 

have Jacobi's watchword, Glaube. He expressly recognizes 
the similarity between the position of the skeptic and his 
own. 1 The difference lies in the fact that one rejects the 
evidence, while the other accepts it. The acceptance is 
made by the Glaubenskraft, which is first later to develop 
into the Vernunft. As yet, the facts to be accepted are all 
furnished by the cognitive power in general — there is no 
sharp division of the faculties. By the exercise of all his 
powers man attains to truth, and this truth is evidenced by 
the immediate certainty we have of it. 

After Kant had analyzed knowledge into the formal and 
material elements, Jacobi feels the need of revising his lan- 
guage, though retaining his beliefs. Accordingly we find his 
system modelled after Kant's. There is the Sinn, Verstand, 
and Vernunft. The point at which he separates from Kant 
is in regard to the nature of the Vernunft. Kant had as- 
serted that the Ideas of reason, having no corresponding 
perception, were empty, and could serve only as guiding 
principles of knowledge. Jacobi makes the Vernunft this 
lacking perceptive power through which the Ideas receive 
reality. We have thus the two corresponding receptive 
faculties, united and thought by the Verstand. But yet the 
office of the Vernunft is not restricted to this narrow sphere* 
however clearly its limits are marked. The old meaning of 
Glaubenskraft still clings to it in its new dress, for we find 
Jacobi making it guarantee the truth of WahrneJunung. He 
had been asserting that the only way to meet Kant was to 
maintain the reality of perception, that we know not only 
phenomena but also an objective reality in phenomena. 
Against such a subjectivity we have only the " positiv offen- 
barende, unbedingt entscheidende Vernunft, oder den natur- 
lichen Vernunftglauben." 2 The function of this faculty is 
thus not to furnish new content of thought, but to pass judg- 
1 II., 156. 2 II., 36. 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I j \ 

ment on that already furnished. It is a selective faculty, 
which determines instinctively the true, beautiful, and good. 1 
In this it is similar to Kant's conscience — an internal tribunal 
in man whicn determines the worth of our ideas and actions. 
The Ideas, which are merely guiding principles for the under- 
standing, receive, not a new content, but a ratification through 
the practical reason. It is on the moral side that we have 
to seek the value of the reason- — its function is in pronounc- 
ing judgments of worth. It does not decide the absolute 
form which objectivity must have, but determines the rela- 
tive value of our partial conceptions of it. No idea we can 
form will give us truth, but some ideas are more valuable to 
us than others. This is the thought Jacobi brings out in the 
appendix to AllwilV s Briefsammlung — the letter to Erhard 
O * * * . This was written in 1791, and is presented by 
Jacobi as one of the important expressions of his thought. 
In it, he admits that we are encompassed by shadow and 
dream, that we know not even the being of our existence. 
" Alles pragen wir mit unserm Bilde, und dies Bild ist eine 
wechselnde Gestalt ; jenes Ich, das wir unser Selbst nennen, 
eine zweideutige Geburt aus Allem und aus Nichts : die 
eigene Seele nur Erscheinung. Doch eine der Wesenheit 
sich nahernde Erscheinung! Selbstthatigkeit und Leben 
offenbaren sich in ihr unmittelbar." 2 This being we thus 
partially know in ourselves, we assign to all existence, and 
claim that it is more natural than a mere mechanical explan- 
ation. 3 It does not exhaust existence, yet the ultimate real- 
ity cannot be less than personal — it is our highest category. 
It is impossible, then, to regard this later terminology which 
Jacobi employs, as a fortunate change. It merely obscures 
the real purpose of his work, by confusing the world of 
values with the world of explanation. He is really seeking 
satisfaction for his moral and religious needs, and to this end 
1 II., 20. 2 1., 231. 3 1., 251. 



j 2 FRIED RICH HEINRICH JACOB I 

must be assured of the existence of a reality which meets 
these needs. He must know that they are not mere subjec- 
tive dreams, of which he must be healed in order to know 
the truth. For this purpose he can find no other means than 
a belief in their objective validity. They are their own war- 
rant by virtue of the intense and irresistible power with 
which they appear in consciousness. The soul is forced to 
recognize them as meeting its deepest needs, though it can 
find no proof of their validity external to themselves. Glaube 
is thus the faith in the soul's power to appropriate that which 
has absolute value. It has nothing to do with the means by 
which the objects are given, nor with their inter-relation and 
mechanical form. It is their relation to the self and their 
meaning in its life, that is the object of the Vernunft. In 
giving it the function of supplying material for this judgment 
of value, Jacobi distinctly weakens his position while render- 
ing it apparently more coherent. It is an unnecessary dupli- 
cation of functions which introduces confusion into all the 
system. The Vernunft is given the office of perceiving a 
special kind of Ideas, and also of testifying to the value of all 
the concepts of consciousness. Jacobi himself, while insist- 
ing strongly on this new use of the term, has always the older 
meaning in his mind. 

We return thus to our starting point. Jacobi's immediate- 
ness is one of certainty, and not of origin. His denial of 
thought is his refusal to accept a system which would seem 
to separate him from immediate contact with reality. He is 
unwilling to have his deepest feelings transformed into con- 
cepts — his values displaced by descriptions. There is a 
blind, unconscious emotion at the root of his life, which 
defies attempt at explanation and mediation. This idea, or 
mood of mind, is the result of his mysticism. It is his mis- 
fortune that he fails to recognize the fact that mediation 
may yet be consistent with immediateness, and that the 



FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI 73 

truth of his immediate certainty need not be impugned by 
the analysis of its contents. Yet this distinction he never 
clearly sees, but thinks it necessary for the maintenance of 
his position, that those ideas which are for him simple, 
should be considered representative of objective truth. Any 
attempt to understand these simple elements of knowledge 
is considered a dangerous concession to Idealism. It gives 
an opening to that tendency to demonstrate which neces- 
sarily leads to atheism. 

5. Conclusion 

To gather up the elements of Jacobi's thought and present 
them in a consistent whole, is a difficult, if not impossible 
task. To point to any one result of his work as that by 
which he has deserved well of humanity, is almost as diffi- 
cult. We might point to the material results as exhibited 
in the formation of a school of thinkers taking his principle 
of Glaube as their starting point, but the influence of that 
school does not seem to depend on that principle, and hence 
can hardly serve as a distinct memorial of our author. In 
truth his thought was little adapted to be the centre of a 
philosophic school. He recognizes this in a letter to one of 
his disciples, Johann Neeb, "To be a teacher, in the proper 
sense of that term, I am not fitted : I can only offer myself 
so that others may learn, not from me, but out of me and 
through me, according to the measure of their need and 
ability." 1 It is his own personal Weltansicht which he 
offers, and any attempt to make it the shibboleth of a school 
could only result in distorting its true meaning by general- 
izing that which was in its nature particular. His personal 
followers, Koppen, Neeb, Ancillon, have nothing to offer but 
the repetition of the cry, Glaube. Their names are scarcely 

1 Briefe, II., 433. 



74 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI 

heard in the history of philosophy by the side of the great 
representatives of the idealistic systems. Of far greater 
value, though not so directly exercised, was the influence 
which Jacobi exercised over a group of men whose only 
bond in common was their debt to him and Kant. These 
men were Fries, Schleiermacher and Beneke. However 
diverse their systems are in their completion, they all con- 
tain this element borrowed from Jacobi — the importance of 
immediate feeling. And yet perhaps it were a more correct 
statement to say that Jacobi's writings were the means by 
which their already latent thought was brought to expres- 
sion, for it is a significant fact that Fries and Schleiermacher 
grew up in the same environment which was the source of 
Jacobi's doctrine — their parents were members of the 
Bri'tdergemeinde. They too, as Jacobi, early outgrew the 
particular pietistic doctrines of the sect, but there can be no 
doubt that this early cultivation of the emotional element in 
their nature made them ready to embrace such a doctrine 
of Glaube as Jacobi offered. In Fries, it took a prominent 
part in his metaphysical theory, by supplying an immediate 
intuition as the source of the Kantian forms of thought. 
The Kritik is thus made a psychological examination of the a 
priori elements of consciousness. These elements are neces- 
sary to knowledge, but the discovery of them in the mind is 
not also an a priori process, but the result of an empirical 
examination. Beneke contains the same line of thought, 
making psychology the basis of metaphysics. The starting 
point must be a fact of consciousness, whose truth we can 
only feel or believe. Unlike Jacobi, however, he finds the 
only immediate knowledge of reality through the inner 
sense. We are conscious of ourselves in the unity of our 
manifold powers. Of other beings we only know the phe- 
nomena, and so far as we consider them existing objects, we 
read into them our knowledge of ourselves. Schleier- 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH J A COB I y 5 

macher's relation to Jacobi is different from that of these 
other two. It is not in his metaphysics that he shows the 
influence of this Realism, but in a special sphere of the 
soul's activity. His theory of knowledge is derived from 
Kant. In thought, we can never close 4 the gap between 
being and thought. The latter is never adequate to the 
former. But in feeling, we are conscious of this unity. 
This is the sphere of religion in which the reconciliation of 
the contradictions in knowledge can take place. We can 
here feel ourselves one with the ultimate Reality, though 
we can never raise this feeling into clear thought. The 
opposition between Glauben and Wissen is absolute. Here 
we recognize Jacobi's influence, and it is expressly noticed 
by Schleiermacher in the dedication of his Reden, which is 
the earliest and most decided expression of this mood. In 
later life, especially through the influence of ethical con- 
siderations, this individualism is somewhat modified. But 
if Jacobi had no other monument, the influence exercised by 
him through Schleiermacher over the religious life of Ger- 
many, would be sufficient. 

Yet it is not even in these special developments of his 
thought, that the main results of his life are to be sought. 
To none of them could he give his full assent, nor do any of 
them represent final results in the history of philosophy. 
It is rather in the impulse which he gave to the study of 
psychology, that we must recognize his lasting worth. Nor 
is this such a vague statement as it may seem at first glance. 
It is true that he shares with Kant the merit of destroying 
the rational dogmatism of the 18th century, and that his 
name is quite overshadowed by that of his great contempo- 
rary, but it is also true that the development initiated by Kant 
took a direction which was wholly opposed to psychology 
and resulted in dogmatisms as rational as those destroyed. 
It is Jacobi's merit to have recalled philosophy to the study 



76 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI 

of the inner life. By insisting on the value of primary be- 
liefs as the ultimate criteria of truth, he makes necessary the 
minute study of these facts, and the consequent analysis of 
consciousness. This, the great service of Empiricism in 
general, was rendered to German philosophy by Jacobi. Nor 
is he merely notable as the instrument by which this was ac- 
complished. He is more than a mere representative of a 
general tendency. It has been of great value to German 
psychology that the founder of this movement was such a 
clear and critical observer as he was. The " relationless im- 
pression " of Locke and the French psychologists, was not 
the starting point of the German development. Beginning 
later, it had learned the lesson of English Empiricism, and 
starts with a truer account of experience. That Jacobi's ser- 
vice is not recognized so widely as it deserves, is probably 
due to the fact that his writing is so unsystematic, and also 
that he himself does not consider his service to be of this 
kind. His influence is indirect and unintended, but none 
the less valuable. In his own eyes, he is not a psychologist, 
but a philosopher. In fact as fact, in science as the organi- 
zation of phenomenal knowledge, he has no interest. His 
psychology has for him a value only as it serves his religious 
needs — its function is largely negative, as showing the impot- 
ence of rational knowledge. Herein we find his weakness. 
He will have the fact of consciousness an ultimate. Psychol- 
ogy must be metaphysics, and not psychology in its broadest 
sense, but the most simple and irrational deliverance of con- 
sciousness. He disparages explanation in favor of existence. 
Whatever seems to destroy the validity of a single fact, must 
be rejected. Without explaining, we must believe. This is 
the alpha and omega of his system. If we will have those 
beliefs which have been dearest to mankind in all ages, we 
must accept them through Glanben, not Wissen. The last 
words of his philosophy are, "One thing we know full well, 



FRIED RICH HEINRICH JA COBI yy 

that Providence and Freedom, if they were not in the begin- 
ning, can be nowhere else. Hence man is deceived by his 
spirit, his heart, and his conscience, which give him these 
ideas as most true. A fable, a lie, were then man ; a fable, a 
lie, were man's God — the God of Socrates and Plato, the 
Christian's God. This was my earliest word : I end as I 
began." 



VITA 

I WAS born at Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., on June 12, 1867, 
the son of James Wilde, merchant. Having been prepared 
for college at the Columbia Grammar School, I entered the 
School of Arts, Columbia College, in 1885, and graduated, 
with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1889. During the 
years 1 889-1 891, I pursued a post-graduate course at 
Columbia under Professors Butler, H. T. Peck, C. S. Smith 
and Dr. Hyslop. I received the degree of Master of Arts 
in 1890. In 1 89 1, I entered the University of Berlin, and 
spent three semesters there, hearing Professors Zeller, Paul- 
sen, Dilthey, Pfleiderer and Ebbinghaus. In 1893, I re- 
turned to the United States, and spent the winter of 1893- 
1894 at Harvard University, under Professors Palmer and 
Royce. 

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